


On a Windswept Cliff

by starfishstar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, M/M, gothic romance AU, magical au, modern-day AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-11 11:33:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2066574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfishstar/pseuds/starfishstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the cliff top where the fearsome Lord Black once stalked, an outcast man meets a big black dog, and things are not as they seem.</p><p>Or: The Remus/Sirius gothic romance AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For this story, I owe many debts of gratitude:
> 
> …to [cat63](http://cat63.livejournal.com), who mentioned Whitby Abbey as having been an inspiration for Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” (“where the Count comes ashore in the form of a huge black dog…”) and first got me thinking about a gothic AU featuring Sirius;
> 
> …to [penknife](http://penknife.livejournal.com), whose wonderful story “[The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time](http://penknife.livejournal.com/142035.html)” is the very reason I believe Remus/Sirius and gothic AUs belong together (and if you haven’t read it yet, run quickly in that direction and do!);
> 
> …to Bram Stoker, though I’ve only borrowed a few Dracula nods here and there;
> 
> …to [stereolightning](http://archiveofourown.org/users/phalaenopsis/pseuds/stereolightning), for beta-reading this story;
> 
> …and to J. K. Rowling, who made all this magic happen.
> 
> Grimmauld Abbey in this story is loosely based on real-life [Whitby Abbey](https://www.google.is/search?q=whitby+abbey&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=RQjdU_ycKaqg0QXp1oDgAw&ved=0CDcQsAQ&biw=1019&bih=583), which is gorgeous and gothic!
> 
> The story is completely written; I’ll post a chapter every couple days. And now, without further ado...

 

Remus J. Lupin, new caretaker of Grimmauld Abbey as of just today, stood atop the cliff and surveyed his modest domain.

There was no question that the abbey ruin, its jagged black silhouette looming against the burnt orange of a sunset sky, was a striking sight. Not far away, cliffs dropped to a narrow sand beach, and Remus imagined he could almost hear the waves that slapped against it, despite the wind whistling past his ears as it swept across the bluff.

From where Remus stood, the nearby village was hidden below the curve of a hill that fell away towards the river mouth, and there on the bluff Remus might have been the only man in the world.

That was good. That was why he’d come here.

As the sun sank the rest of the way into a bank of steely grey clouds at the horizon, its colours muting suddenly from fiery to diffuse, Remus thought he heard a dog howling. The hairs on the back of his neck rose in sympathy, so lonesome was the sound. It nearly made him want to transform into his Animagus form and–

No. Of course he didn’t want to do that. Remus never transformed without a very good reason, and he was certainly not going to do it now for a lark. That would be irresponsible in the extreme.

Shaking his head at himself, Remus wrapped his arms more tightly around his body as a sudden, sharp gust of wind from the sea buffeted at him. He turned to make his way towards the back of the abbey, to the small cottage that would be his home.

Home. A strange word to be able to say in connection with himself. Even a small and simple cottage seemed more than he deserved.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Remus woke the next morning well before he was scheduled to meet the woman who ran the small museum attached to the abbey. His former headmaster, who had pointed him towards this job and written his letter of reference as well, had described her as “eminently sensible” and heavily hinted that Remus should make contact with her straight away.

But it was far too early to expect her to be in the museum. Professor Dumbledore had said she had a large family, as well.

Instead, Remus made his way along the bluff to where a steep flight of steps hewn into the rock sketched a rickety zigzag down to the narrow strip of sand at the foot of the cliff. Summer was beginning, but this early in the morning the air held a chill that was invigorating. The rising sun was still low over the sea, mostly hidden behind scuttling clouds, but the few rays that did slip out tinted the east-facing beach in slanting light.

Remus breathed deeply, tasting the salt on the air, and tried not to think too many clichéd things about new beginnings and fresh starts.

He’d thought the beach empty, but a moment later a big black dog came bounding up to him, tail wagging in delighted greeting. There must be another way down to the beach at the other end as well, since the dog surely hadn’t descended those steep steps.

“Hello, there,” Remus said, rubbing the shaggy head that pressed eagerly against his thigh. “Where’s your owner, then?” But there was no one to be seen in either direction on the beach.

Yes, Remus acknowledged to himself, he was now living in the kind of tiny, far-flung place where people let their dogs roam about off the lead.

Well, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and at least he was living somewhere. These last few years of itinerant grief hadn’t done anyone any good. It was time to re-join the living, as much as he was capable of doing, as much as he dared to do.

Remus spent a meditative half hour tossing a bit of driftwood for the big black dog, which seemed ecstatic to have company and thrilled to chase the stick as many times as Remus wanted to throw it.

Remus couldn’t help but appreciate the dog’s uncomplicated joy in their interaction. He’d always felt something of an affinity for dogs. How could he not, really, given his Animagus form?

As the sun inched upwards in the sky, approaching an angle more reasonable for the start of the workday, Remus gave the driftwood one last extra vigorous toss, then shook his head at the dog when it bounded up eagerly again, the stick in its mouth.

“Sorry, boy. Much as I’d be glad to stay here and play all day, I’ve got some responsibilities to take care of.”

The dog whined and gave Remus a piteous look.

“I know, but life’s not all fun and games, is it?” Then, feeling frankly ridiculous for talking this way to a dog, he added, “I’ll see you around, then.”

He could have sworn the dog gave him a curt nod of acknowledgement before it turned and loped away down the beach.

Putting that fanciful thought out of his head, Remus made his way back up the stone steps, across the wind-swept grassy bluff and around to the lee side of the abbey, where the squat little modern shape of the museum nestled incongruously against the weathered columns of the abbey ruin.

Before ducking inside the half-open door, Remus gave himself a quick check, making sure there was nothing visibly magical about his appearance. There was surprisingly little wizarding population in this area, given the Dark magical history of the abbey itself. That was much of the point of having a caretaker, in fact. His job was less about the physical upkeep of the building and more about making sure no pockets of residual Dark magic seeped out of the old stones or bubbled up out of the ground and caused harm to the unknowing Muggle population of the nearby village.

Satisfied that he had not left his wand poking out of his jacket pocket or any other such foolish thing, Remus stepped inside.

Behind a desk in the far corner of the open-plan room was a plump, pleasant-faced, red-haired woman in perhaps her mid-thirties, who rose and came towards him as he stepped inside the door. The room, though dotted with books and posters and display cases of objects relating to the abbey, was nothing like what Remus had been expecting. It looked more like someone’s cosy living room than a museum – let alone a museum attached to what had once been the power base of the Darkest wizard of the modern age. Then again, Muggles didn’t know that those legends were real.

“Remus Lupin!” the woman exclaimed as she came to meet him. “You must be Remus Lupin, aren’t you? The new caretaker?”

“Yes,” Remus said, disarmed by her warmth. “Yes, pleased to meet you. You must be Mrs Weasley?”

“Oh, call me Molly, please,” she said. “It’s all family here, really. My boys are underfoot a good deal of the time anyway, now the school year’s finished. You’ll see. Oh, I’m so pleased you’re here. Let me show you what we’ve got in here, and then we’ll do a tour round the abbey itself after. Would you like some tea?”

She waved a hand vaguely around them, at the cases and informational displays and stacks and stacks of documents on every available surface, then ducked behind a partition at the back of the room that turned out to conceal a small kitchen – everything Muggle-style, of course, with an electric kettle and a hotplate and a small basin for washing up.

As she set the kettle boiling and Remus looked at some of the displays, Molly chattered away, largely about the legends that surrounded the abbey.

“Most people who come here have read the book, of course. _Lord Black_ ,” she intoned, putting winkingly dramatic emphasis on the name that was both a novel and its titular character. “Ooh, folks do like a good vampire story, don’t they? Some come here wanting to know where he’s buried, or if the coffin’s still down in the crypt. I tell them it’s just a _story_ of course.”

Of course. To most of the world, Lord Black was just a legend out of an old book, something spooky that induced a pleasant shudder of horror, as things that are confirmedly not real can do.

But for Remus and the wizarding population to which he belonged, Lord Black was more than a legend, definitively _not_ a vampire, and the latest bout of horror and destruction that the Dark lord had wreaked was considerably more recent than the novel that fictionalised his first rise, a century before.

For some people, in fact, the destruction was personal in the extreme.

Casting about for something to distract himself from these painful thoughts, Remus said, “I was down on the beach this morning and saw a big black dog. I’d forgotten until you mentioned the book, but that was part of the legend, wasn’t it? That Black could turn into a dog at will?”

“Oh, yes, it certainly was,” Molly said. “And I know exactly the dog you mean. A sweetheart, isn’t he? I’ve always suspected some of the locals let him roam round like that deliberately, to drum up business among the tourists, you know, stoke the fires of the mythology a little. But no one will ever admit to owning him. Anyhow, he’s no harm. You needn’t worry.”

A friendly stray was really the least of the things Remus was worried about.

“How long have you worked here?” he asked, rather than dwelling any further on the “mythology” of Lord Black.

“Coming on three years now,” Molly said, and for just a second her otherwise expressive face went still and thoughtful.

Nearly three years, the same time that had passed since Lord Black’s final – and this time complete – downfall.

But surely it was a coincidence. What connection could a Muggle museum curator have to the true and permanent defeat of the real-life Lord Black? It certainly hadn’t been safe to allow Muggles into the abbey ruin until after Black’s second, more recent, reign of terror was over. Perhaps the place had been Disillusioned until then, and the tourist business had only started up again afterwards. A very obvious question Remus should have thought to ask Professor Dumbledore, and hadn’t.

They sat outside in front of the museum to drink their tea, the sun peeking out thinly now and then from behind scudding clouds, Remus endeavouring to follow the conversation and not allow his brooding thoughts to carry him away.

Had it been a mistake to come here, of all places, to the former home of the wizard who had murdered Remus’ dearest friends? But anywhere else he went was sure to remind him of his loss in some other way. There was nothing to do but grit his teeth and bear it.

Molly was chatting about her children now – “Seven of them, I know, I know, it’s a madhouse much of the time, but they’re dears, if I do say so myself. The two oldest – that’s Bill and Charlie – are already at Hogwarts, Charlie’s just finished his first year–”

Remus blinked. “Sorry, what did you say?”

“They’re at Hogwarts, dear, where else? Best school of magic in the world.”

Remus very rapidly and very thoroughly revised everything he had thought he understood about Molly Weasley.

She looked at him, then burst out laughing, “Oh, you didn’t think–? Goodness, thank you, I take that as a compliment, that I really can fly under the ‘radar,’ as they say. I do try, given that all the tourists who come here are Muggles. Bless them. Wouldn’t do to be heating the water for tea at wandpoint right under their noses, would it?”

Remus found himself speechless.

Molly’s brow furrowed in sudden concern. “Oh dear, I didn’t say something thoughtless, did I? I get so caught up in the fun of the legend as the Muggles know it, sometimes I forget how raw the real history still is. You didn’t lose someone in the war, did you?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Remus said, both pleased and dismayed to find he had lost none of his facility at telling protective lies.

“Oh, good,” Molly sighed, sinking back into her chair. “I get so used to talking to Muggles, you know, that I forget how things were for our kind. We moved here directly after the war, because Dumbledore thought there ought to be a witch or wizard working here, and Arthur – that’s my husband – had just got a post in town too, as the local Ministry liaison, so it all just seemed to fit. So we didn’t really live out the worst of the aftermath of the war, you know, we were rather removed from it. It was all just things we read in the papers. That poor boy,” she tsked, and Remus’ heart dropped into his stomach, because there was only one boy she could mean, and Remus didn’t think he could bear to exchange even a word about him.

“How about that tour of the grounds?” he asked, standing abruptly.

Molly looked at him curiously, but all she said was, “Of course. Let me just take these things back inside, then I’ll show you around.”

As Molly took the teacups inside, Remus stood and gazed unseeingly across the green fields beyond the abbey, breathing hard and trying to get himself under control. He could do this. He could live among wizards again; he could grow used to casual mentions of Harry Potter. Molly had taken him by surprise, that was all.

“Off we go!” Molly said, re-emerging and locking the door behind her with an impressive ring of brass keys she pulled from her pocket. “These will be yours, by the way,” she said, jangling the keys at him. “I’ve been filling in, while Dumbledore looked for someone to take over as caretaker, but really my role is the greet-the-public part. For the caretaker, we need someone who specialises in Defensive magic, as I hear you do.”

She peered up at him, seeming to expect an answer, so Remus said, “Oh, er, yes, I suppose I did specialise in that in school, a bit. It’s been a few years, though.”

“Good enough for me,” Molly said. “Defence was never my strong suit; I’m much better with Charms. And Arthur is just fantastic at Transfiguration,” she added fondly. “You’ll like Arthur. We’ll have to have you over for dinner soon.”

It was all Remus could do to bite back the urge to cry, _No!_

This was not right. This was precisely what he had been trying to avoid, getting into a situation where he would end up growing too dangerously close to anyone. And Dumbledore had sent him here knowing that Molly and Arthur Weasley were a witch and wizard, surely knowing, too, that Molly was the type who would want to adopt all strays into the fold of her family.

Apparently Dumbledore was still trying to get Remus to make friends, as if what had happened last time he dared to do so weren’t proof enough that that would always be a bad idea.

Molly led Remus around the abbey ruin, explaining where she took visitors on the tours she led and which spots were known for having a particularly Dark history.

“I don’t taken them right up to the altar itself, too many sacrifices and blood magic there back in the day. I think even Muggles would feel a chill at that spot, honestly,” she said, and Remus nodded, thrown once again by her matter-of-factness in the face of such a terrible place.

At the east end of what had once been the apse, Molly noted, “The entryway to the crypt was just here. It’s all filled in now, but Dumbledore says that’s the spot where they’ve had the most trouble with spells going haywire and such. You’ll want to keep an eye on that, I suspect.”

She sighed and looked out through one of the open archways that had once been a window.

“It’s terrible to think of the things that have been done here over the years,” she said. “Back during Lord Black’s first reign, all those years ago… It must have been terrible, if even Muggles got wind of some of it, enough to write their own stories about it. Vampire, indeed – bless them, it’s the only way they could make sense of someone so evil and so undead. And during this last war as well, after he came back from the not-quite-dead… I don’t know anyone who was affected personally, but it was a terrifying time for all of us. And yet… I think you’ll find it can be quite nice here, very peaceful, if you can set aside thinking about the history. The kids love playing among the stones, and I do think that says something. Maybe in another generation, it really will just be the pretty old ruin the Muggles think it is. I hope so, anyway.”

She shook her head, then turned to smile at Remus. “Well, I’ve certainly talked at you enough for one day. Have you got any questions?”

What Remus found himself saying was, “How do you know Albus Dumbledore?”

He himself owed the man a debt of gratitude, not only for finding him this job, but for dragging him back into society after nearly three years spent lost and wandering, grieving the loss of his friends and his share of the guilt in their deaths.

But those were memories he needed to put out of his mind, as impossible as that seemed.

“Well, who doesn’t know Dumbledore, really?” was Molly’s response.

She had a point. Nearly every adult member of Britain’s magical population had attended Hogwarts at some point, and Dumbledore had been at Hogwarts for what seemed like approximately all of history. Who didn’t know Dumbledore, indeed?

“He was looking for someone to work here, after the war,” Molly continued, “and when he heard Arthur was to be posted to the area, he asked me if I would consider taking this job. I was terribly flattered. Ginny – that’s our youngest – was only a few months old, and I wasn’t planning to start working again so soon. But Dumbledore seemed to think I could do the job, and he convinced me.” She smiled. “That’s Professor Dumbledore all over, isn’t it? He decides you’d be good at something, and before you know what’s happened, you’re already doing it.”

All together too true.

Remus gave Molly what he hoped was a neutral, pleasant smile.

“Anyway,” she said, “I should get back and open up the museum for the day. Here are the keys. They’re all yours, now!”

The key ring she handed him had a pleasant heft in his hand.

“If you’re not sure what something is, just give a shout,” Molly said. “I’m in and out of the museum all day. But I’ll let you go off on your own now and get to know the place.” She smiled up fondly at the grey stone arch that rose jaggedly above their heads.

Then, taking Remus by surprise, she reached out and rested one hand on his sleeve. “I’m glad you’ve come. It will be good to have a second pair of hands around here, and the eye of someone who really knows protective magic.”

Then she bustled off back towards the museum building before Remus could protest that that was the very last description that should ever be applied to him.

Remus spent an unexpectedly pleasant morning getting acquainted with the abbey, walking the building and grounds, casting revealing spells here and there to get a sense of what sort of residual magic was in the place. For the most part, the stones seemed peaceful.

The atmosphere as a whole was a melancholy one, up there on the windy bluff, but nothing felt immediately Dark or dangerous to him. Perhaps Molly was right; perhaps this could even be a place where he might find a modicum of peace.

In the afternoon, he took a long walk to get acquainted with the countryside: the river that cut along one side of the bluff to meet the sea beneath the abbey, the village nestled against the slope that rose from its other bank, the fields and hills that rolled away inland from the coast.

All in all, it was not so very different to the Welsh coast of his childhood. Surely he could learn to live in this place.

By the time Remus made his way back to the abbey that evening, the sun had set and the sky was a dramatic vermillion reflected and magnified by stratus clouds. He’d been out walking longer than he realised.

Remus was approaching the small cottage at the back of the abbey, patting his trouser pockets to find the house key, when a voice said, “You’re the new caretaker, I see.”

Peering through the twilight, Remus could just make out the form of a man, slouched against the side of the building, a curtain of hair obscuring his face. His voice, rich and dark and with a hint of amusement, curled out like smoke from beneath the eaves. “Liking it so far? It’s a charming place, I suppose, if you go in for that sort of thing.”

Remus stopped a couple feet away from the man. He still couldn’t make out more than shoulder-length dark hair and a pair of eyes, perhaps grey. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

The man chuckled, as if this were a particularly amusing thing for a man to ask a stranger he found lurking outside his house. “Sirius,” he said.

Remus waited. “Sirius…?”

No surname seemed to be forthcoming.

“Yes,” was all the man said. He pushed himself off from the side of the cottage, but crossed his arms, rather than offering a hand to shake.

“I’m Remus,” Remus said. He’d be damned if he was going to offer any more than he got.

“Remus,” the man repeated, as if testing it out. Then he smirked. “Pleased to meet you, Remus. I’d ask what brings you to our humble corner of the country, but I suppose I already know. You’re here to keep an eye on this old place, keep it from blowing anybody up.”

“Sorry,” Remus said, not feeling sorry at all, “but do you have a reason to be here? Because, actually, this is my house and I’d like to go inside.”

The man – Sirius – laughed, a bright, sharp sound utterly unfitting to his appearance, somewhere between a dog’s bark of greeting and a wolf’s yipping at the moon.

“Oh, by all means,” he said. “Be my guest.” He uncurled himself from his spot under the eaves and stepped past Remus, one hand just brushing Remus’ elbow. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, I’m sure,” he murmured. Then he melted into the shadows and was gone.

Remus blinked. By rote, he found the key, unlocked the cottage door, went inside, and bolted it again behind him.

Standing still on the other side of the door, he found his heart was pounding. Not from fear, though.

The man had been odd and peremptory in his manner – not to mention that he’d been lurking around in the dark like some nutcase, for Merlin’s sake – yet Remus hadn’t found him threatening.

If anything, there was something… intriguing about him. Something exciting.

Exciting? Had he truly just thought that? Excitement was the last thing Remus should be looking for here.

Very firmly, Remus shook his head at himself, set his keys down on the little table beside the door, and went to make himself something to eat.


	2. Chapter 2

"This might sound a bit odd, but is there, er, a man who hangs about here sometimes? Dark hair, bit of a…deliberately mysterious air?" Remus asked Molly the next morning.

They were sitting out in front of the museum, despite the grey clouds scudding overhead, and sorting through an enormous pile of archives, files and rolls of parchment on the history of the abbey. Molly claimed it was to better acquaint Remus with some background on the place, but he suspected it was at least in part because she wanted an extra pair of hands to help with a seemingly endless task.

Her youngest – a toddler and the only girl among the bunch, as far as Remus had been able to determine – was playing under Molly's chair with a toy wand cleverly disguised as a plastic Muggle sword. The next three youngest – twins of perhaps six, and another boy a year or so older than the girl – were within shouting distance, wrestling over a child-sized Quaffle.

Molly laughed. "Yesterday a dog and today a man? You do draw the strays, don't you, Remus? No, I can't say I know anyone who fits that description. But folks from the village occasionally wander up here, even though the grounds are technically closed at night. If he comes again and gives you any trouble, you do have the authority to call in the Muggle police if necessary."

"No, no, it was no problem," Remus said. "I was just wondering if that sort of thing happened often."

The man hadn't been trouble, exactly. At least, not trouble of any sort the Muggle police were equipped to deal with.

Molly handed him another slip of parchment. They were trying to sort the documents roughly by topic and era, though Molly had an extremely complex filing system that Remus had not yet fully grasped.

With each new record or file or letter, Remus winced in anticipation, steeling himself to see Harry's name jump out at him, or mentions of James and Lily's death, that night that had brought a final end to Lord Black's long reign of terror.

But so far, to Remus' relief, most of the documents had been older ones, relating to the Dark wizard's first bid for power in the late 19th century, when he'd bent the country to his will from this, his stronghold, Grimmauld Abbey.

Molly was scheduled to give an abbey tour to a large group of Muggle tourists that afternoon, and she chatted to Remus about it as they worked.

"There are a few true things I can tell them, of course," she was saying. "19th century nobleman – they don't need to know he was a _wizarding_ nobleman – cruel and power-hungry, known for the absolute loyalty he demanded of those who served him. I tell them the legend that he arrived here in Yorkshire from a shipwreck off the coast, and that he swam ashore in the form of a big black dog. Children love that bit. He made Grimmauld Abbey his home, set about trying to wrest power from other lords and intimidate the general population into obeying him – then vanished very suddenly, amid rumours that he couldn't really be dead because he hadn't been quite human to begin with. That's where the Muggles get their vampire notions. There are legends, too, that he lay asleep in the crypt beneath the Abbey through the decades, waiting for the right the moment to return and try again to take control of the wizarding population and rule over the Muggles." She shivered. "Which is one part of the legend that turned out to be true."

"Quite aside from the legend," Remus said, keeping himself carefully blank as he steered the conversation back away from Lord Black's second rise, "does anyone know why he disappeared the first time, back then?"

Molly shrugged, the gesture not dismissive, but an acknowledgement that some things could never be known for certain. "Some other very powerful wizard must have managed to subdue him for a time, though not, er – finish things, if you know what I mean."

She nodded carefully in the direction of the little girl playing under her chair, and Remus couldn't help being momentarily diverted by the realisation that Molly didn't mind raising her family amongst the ruins of the place where the Darkest wizard in modern history had once ruled – but drew the line at discussing the death of said wizard in front of her children.

"Whatever Dark magic he'd used to make himself invincible meant he couldn't be, er, gone for good," she continued. "Still, though, stopping him even for a time must have been an extraordinary feat. Perhaps it's a bit mad, but I've always suspected Dumbledore of having had a hand in it, though he would have been very young then, just a teen. But of course he'll never say."

Remus himself had sometimes wondered the same. Dumbledore had been so deeply involved in vanquishing Lord Black this second time that it wasn't hard to imagine him having been involved the first time as well.

Remus wondered what had changed in those intervening decades to render a Dark wizard, determined to live forever, mortal once again.

"They say he had sons, back when he was still fully human," Molly mused, gazing out over the hills into the slate-coloured sky. "But no one knows for sure. I wouldn't envy anyone being a child of that family. Or the wife of such a man, for that matter."

She shook her head.

"Sorry! What dark talk. Have you found that title deed yet? I know it's in that pile somewhere; I had it just the other day."

From there, their conversation diverted into property deeds and Muggle versus wizarding property registers, and Remus was grateful.

After Molly had conducted her tour group around the abbey that afternoon – 20 eager Muggles, some even dressed in period costumes, with black capes and plastic vampire fangs – in the ensuing quiet, Remus did his rounds of the building, outbuildings and grounds. He had decided this would be his routine, checking every inch of the place daily, so that if the magic of it shifted even slightly, he would be the first to know.

Wand in one hand, the other trailing firmly along the wind-weathered grey stones of the abbey's outer wall, Remus' thoughts wandered inevitably back to Lord Black.

His resurrection, after decades of dormancy, had come in the 1970s, when Remus was at school. It had come about by the help of loyal followers, witches and wizards enamoured of the Dark Arts and the illusion that a returned Lord Black would bring pure-blood wizards untold power over the Muggle world. By the time Remus and his friends had left Hogwarts, "He Who Must Not Be Named" had had Britain's wizarding population cowering on its knees.

They'd joined Dumbledore's secret organisation, of course, he and James and Lily. The Order of the Phoenix. How could they not? James and Lily were the bravest, most right-minded people he knew, and Lily was a Muggle-born witch. There was no way any of them was going to stand by and watch a megalomaniac destroy everything they loved.

Then came the prophecy, the one that said Lord Black's downfall would come at the hands of a boy whose description matched that of Harry, James and Lily's infant son. Remus' godson.

And James and Lily had taken baby Harry and gone into hiding, and they had needed a Secret Keeper. Remus, despite grave misgivings, had agreed to be that person. But on the evening they were to perform the spell, terrified that history would repeat itself and he would somehow lead danger to them rather than away, Remus had backed out.

James and Lily were understanding, had said they would fine someone else. But in that one day, between when Remus should have done it and when they would have found someone else, Lord Black had found and killed them.

By hesitating to protect them, Remus had fulfilled his own prophecy, and brought about their deaths.

Remus found himself choking, gasping for breath, clinging blindly to the stones of the abbey, as if the world had tilted beneath him and this was the last thing keeping him from being flung into the abyss.

He managed to sink to his knees, and the chill of the damp ground seeped through the fabric of his trousers. A few heavy drops of rain had begun to fall. He panted, desperate for breath.

Would it ever be possible to think of James and Lily without this crushing weight of guilt and grief?

Remus bowed his head, and breathed.

He tried to conjure up happier memories. Lily dancing with delight the first time she successfully brewed Polyjuice Potion. James proudly tossing his antlered head, then promptly walking into a wall because his spatial perception had not yet adjusted to his new form, the first time he and Remus had completed the Animagus transformation.

James and Lily. Remus had failed them just as he had failed his own parents.

Remus dragged himself to his feet, and completed his rounds of the abbey by force of will. When that was finished, he walked away from the abbey in a straight line, out across the hills and farmland, through the intermittent rain and the watery streaks of sunlight, simply walked until he was too tired even to think. Then and only then did he turn his feet back towards the abbey.

It must have been nearing midnight by the time he returned, the waxing moon high in the sky and the rain finally over. Remus approached his small cottage, then stopped. His senses, heightened ever since he'd become an Animagus, told him someone was nearby.

Once again, the dark-haired man he'd met the night before precipitated out of the shadows.

"Look at you, turning up like an unlucky Knut," Remus said, surprising himself even as the words left his mouth. Remus did not, as a rule, banter with tall, dark strangers.

"Look at you," the man returned, "wandering about in all manner of weather. Too cool to be caught wearing sensible outdoors clothing, are we?"

"Too good at waterproofing charms to need it," Remus retorted, and the man barked out a surprised laugh.

Remus had to hide a smile. Making this man laugh was unexpectedly easy, and unexpectedly amusing.

Far too late, Remus realised he had simply assumed the man was a wizard. He was not usually so incautious. Perhaps there was just something so otherworldly about this man that it was impossible to imagine him not possessing magic. Still, that sort of carelessness was inexcusable.

The man was giving Remus a sardonic look, practically rolling his eyes. "No, I'm not a Muggle. So you can stop squinching up your face in consternation like that."

"When meeting unfamiliar individuals, one should assume non-magical status unless explicitly proven otherwise," Remus said, then could have kicked himself for talking like a book.

Now the man – Sirius – did roll his eyes. "And I've finally met someone who's memorised the Statute of Secrecy in its entirety."

"Not in its entirety!" Remus protested, then realised he'd fallen into the trap of admitting he had in fact memorised parts of it.

He just happened to find wizarding legal history fascinating, that was all. It didn't make him the world's biggest nerd. Except the man was looking at him like it really, really did.

"Bet you were a right swot in school," Sirius said.

"Bet _you_ were forever getting into trouble for being in places you shouldn't," Remus shot back.

He didn't mean anything bad by it. He and James had certainly spent time in plenty of places they shouldn't have been – in the Forbidden Forest at night learning to be Animagi, just for starters. But something in the man's face shuttered closed, making him look haughty and unapproachable in a way he hadn't before.

Another belated realisation: If they were roughly the same age – and it was hard to tell in the dark, but Remus thought they probably were – then why didn't he know Sirius from Hogwarts? He would _definitely_ have noticed this man.

Something in Sirius' face forbade asking.

Searching for more neutral ground, Remus said, "You must live around here, then?"

"What makes you say that?" the man snapped.

Remus lifted an eyebrow, though the full effect of it was probably lost in the shadows. "Because this is the second time in as many days that I've found you hanging round my door?"

"Right." The man seemed to relax fractionally. "Well, if you've got better things to be doing…"

"No, no. I didn't mean that."

Remus found himself tempted to invite the man inside, to suggest they chat by the fireside instead of in the harsh wind, if they were going to chat anyway. Surely Sirius didn't lurk around outdoors by choice?

That thought called to mind the legend – not strictly true, though a widely held belief even among wizards – that vampires had to be invited before they could cross the threshold of a house.

Whatever this man was, though, he wasn't a vampire. Even if he did seem, so far, only to come out at night. Remus had done an extensive study of Dark Beings as his final project in Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts – a school project with real-world relevance if ever there was one, given the period during which Remus had finished school – and he knew the signs. Sirius was an odd one, but he was not undead.

And yet…and yet… Inviting strange men into his house, no matter how alluring, ran directly counter to his purpose in living out here, which was to keep himself from forming the sorts of close ties that could only ever lead to tragedy. Molly, he fervently hoped, he could count as exempt, since the two of them were colleagues, not friends. But Sirius… No. Remus was not here to make friends.

But surely chatting for a little while here in the dark could do no harm?

Remus cast about for something to say. Asking the man about himself was clearly off-limits. "What sort of things are there to do around here, then?" he asked, hearing how banal the question sounded even as he spoke it.

"To do?" Sirius replied with a snort. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. There's the sleepy little village down there below the hill, and that's it."

 _Why do you stay here, then?_ Remus wanted to ask, but of course he didn't.

Relenting a little, Sirius amended, "This place is beautiful, though, I'll give it that. So it's all right, if you like walking and cliffs and sea and that sort of thing."

"I do," Remus said.

Sirius was looking at him closely and for a moment Remus had the mad thought Sirius was going to offer to…what? Show him around? Meet up sometime for a walk, rather than only ever meeting by almost-chance here in the darkness?

Remus surprised himself with how much he wished for Sirius to suggest something very much like that.

Sirius, too, looked as though he wanted to say more, but something was holding him back. At length all he said was, "Well. I suppose that's all right, then." After another silence, he smirked and said, "Why'd _you_ come here, then? Surely you knew it's a boring old place."

"It's a job," Remus said. "And I needed one."

Sirius tilted his head, there in the darkness, as if the idea of needing a job badly enough to take anything that was on offer were something he couldn't entirely comprehend. Remus wondered what he did for a living, or if in fact he worked at all. Going by the cut of his clothes alone, he probably didn't have to.

Another question Remus suspected wouldn't be welcome. Something about Sirius, though, intrigued him enough that he almost wanted to ask anyway–

No.

No, he should not be trying to get to know this man who had turned up on his doorstep. He should cut this off before there was any danger of going too far.

"It's late," Remus said.

"It's late," Sirius agreed.

Was that a note of disappointment in his otherwise posh and perfectly modulated voice? Impossible to say.

"Good night, then," Remus said. "Er, see you around, I guess." He stepped carefully around Sirius, to the cottage door.

"Good night, Remus," Sirius said, his voice going low and smoky as it had been when he had first appeared out of the shadows the night before. It sent a shiver up Remus' spine.

Remus turned back to look at Sirius. The moonlight threw his dramatic features into sharp relief and there was no other word for it – he was beautiful.

For one long moment, Sirius stared back at him, and his eyes seemed to bore right into Remus, find all his hidden fears, weigh them, and judge them lacking. Judge them not reason enough to turn away a man like Sirius.

But then the moment passed, the corner of Sirius' mouth lifted in the tiniest quirk of amusement, and he turned with a flourish and strode away across the bluff.

This time, Remus watched him go. Sirius was visible a long time in the bright moonlight, his dark cloak whipping about him and the wind throwing his hair back from his shoulders. Remus stood in the chill wind outside the cottage and watched until he was out of sight.


	3. Chapter 3

Approaching the museum building the next morning, Remus blinked at an unexpected sight: The big black dog, the one he’d seen down on the beach his first morning, was romping through the grass, barking happily as several of Molly’s children chased after him, shrieking and calling out to one another, the sunlight glinting from their bright hair.  
   
Remus looked towards the museum, and Molly emerged from the doorway, surveying the scene and smiling.  
   
“I swear to you, I’ve never seen that dog up here before, only on the beach below the cliffs,” she said. “He must have come up here looking for you, Remus.”  
   
“That would be quite a clever dog, to have figured out where I live,” Remus objected. But then he thought of how the dog had seemed almost to nod in understanding when Remus left the beach that first day, and he wondered.  
   
The black dog made a galloping pass close by the museum door, shaggy dark ears streaming back from his head and an unmistakeable canine grin of joy on his face. Little Ginny, the youngest of the children, came toddling after him. Near her mother’s feet she took a tumble, but got right up again, calling after the dog, “Blackie! Blackie!” Remus could have sworn the dog slowed just enough to allow her to catch up again.  
   
The twins – Fred and George, Remus recalled – and the youngest boy, Ron, came racing up too, shouting, “Blackie Dog! Hey, Blackie!” Percy, the next in age above the twins, who was sitting in a small chair in the sunlight near the museum door and scribbling away at something that looked suspiciously like homework, glanced up in annoyance at his brothers’ shouting.  
   
“The dog’s acquired a name, I see,” Remus said.  
   
Molly sighed. “Don’t expect creativity when you allow a three-year-old to name anything. It’s the reason we’ve got a Cat called Cat.”  
   
Remus chuckled. He could almost picture what the Weasley family’s home must look like, red-headed children tumbling in and out of the door and a Cat called Cat winding around everyone’s ankles. It made for a very cosy image.  
   
Molly smiled fondly after the children a few moments longer, then turned to Remus. “What’s your plan for the day?”  
   
“I do want to be walking the grounds and keeping an eye on things every day, but it’s really not enough work to keep me occupied day in and day out. I was thinking I could spend the mornings helping you with records and things here, and the afternoons doing my rounds. What do you think?”  
   
Molly looked as if she could have flung her arms around Remus in thanks, and only barely restrained herself. There really were a lot of unsorted documents everywhere Remus looked around the place.  
   
Again they sat in the sunlight, sorting and discussing, until a couple of tourists wandered up and Molly broke off her other work so she could show them around.  
   
In the afternoon, Remus did his rounds of the abbey, checking spellwork in every nook and cranny, starting to establish a routine to follow each day so there could be no possibility of missing anything.  
   
In the evening, Molly having already packed up her children and headed down the hill to the village, Remus walked to the edge of the bluff. He glanced back at the abbey, the setting sun going blood red in the western sky behind it, then found the steps that zigzagged down the cliff to the small beach.  
   
The beach was already in shadow, the setting sun obscured by the cliff behind it, and there was a chill in the air. This time, Remus had thought to bring a cloak, and now he wrapped it more tightly around himself.  
   
He’d vaguely thought he might see the black dog again, which had wandered off after a couple hours of playing with the children, but the beach was deserted.  
   
Remus walked for a bit, feeling his shoes sink into the sand, to the end of the beach where he saw that another path wound its way up the bluffs, then back to the point where he’d started. He sat down at the edge of the water, toes just above the tideline, and gazed out into the darkening sky. He imagined the sun behind him, hidden behind the tall crag of the cliff, sinking in last increments beyond the horizon – going, going, gone.  
   
The sky ripened into deepest blue, the moon still low in the east. Stars began to prick the sky.  
   
Remus heard a sound beside him, and turned to see Sirius sitting down on the sand a couple feet away.  
   
“Hello,” Remus said, surprised. He’d thought he’d scared the man off the night before. Had tried to tell himself, in fact, that he hoped he had done, hoped this man would not try to pursue whatever odd friendship might otherwise have grown between them.  
   
But the swooping in his stomach when he turned and saw Sirius told Remus that he hadn’t quite managed to hope that.  
   
“You asked where I live,” Sirius said, without the least word of greeting.  
   
“Yes…?”  
   
“My family are from around here. Were from around here. They’re all dead now.”  
   
“I’m sorry.”  
   
“Don’t be. They were terrible people.”  
   
Remus glanced at Sirius in surprise, but he seemed deadly earnest.  
   
“Anyway,” Sirius said, “my family have all been from here, and I grew up here. I keep a cottage nearby. Over the hills a bit.”  
   
Remus nodded. He had the sense it had cost the man to share even that much.  
   
“My family are all gone, too,” Remus said. He couldn’t believe he was telling this to a near stranger.  
   
“I’m sorry.” Sirius’ voice had gone gentle, utterly opposite to just moments ago, when he’d declared himself glad his own family were dead.  
   
“Thank you,” Remus said. After nearly two decades as an orphan, he still never knew quite what to say in response to people’s sympathy. “My parents died in an – accident. When I was a kid.”  
   
“I’m sorry,” Sirius repeated. Remus looked down and saw that their hands – his left and Sirius’ right – were just inches apart on the pale sand.  
   
At length, Sirius said, “I went to Durmstrang. You probably wondered why you never saw me at good old Hogwarts. Well, that’s why.”  
   
Now Remus glanced at Sirius, but he was staring out at the sea.  
   
“I mean, I know that’s nothing like what you just told me,” Sirius said. “I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying – everyone has a past, you know? Everybody’s got their dark secrets.”  
   
Remus glanced down again at their hands, which seemed to be even closer somehow, without either of them having moved.  
   
“Attending Durmstrang doesn’t seem like a dark secret,” he said. “I imagine plenty of families choose to send their children there.”  
   
Sirius snorted. “Yeah, and they tend to have very specific reasons for making that choice. You know Lord Black? The reason behind all _that_?” He jerked his head angrily back towards the abbey on the cliff behind them. “My parents… They sure thought he had the right idea.”  
   
Had Sirius’ parents been Death Eaters? No wonder he hadn’t wanted to tell Remus his family name.  
   
They were quiet, both looking at the sea.  
   
“Who’d you live with?” Sirius asked, after a while.  
   
“What?”  
   
“Who’d you live with, then? After your parents died?”  
   
“I was sent to some distant relatives until it was time to start Hogwarts. After I started school, I used to go home in the summers with my best friend James,” Remus said. Impulsively, he added, “You would have liked James.”  
   
How could he possibly know that, about one man he’d only known three days and another who had been dead for three years? And yet somehow, he felt sure.  
   
“‘Would have’?” Sirius repeated.  
   
“Yeah. He’s, er – he’s dead, too. He and his wife Lily, who was my other closest friend.”  
  
  
Merlin, but he made his life sound like the most preposterous melodrama, when he listed it out like that. He should have kept his mouth shut.  
   
“I’m so sorry,” Sirius said, very quietly. “That’s awful. I’m sorry.”  
   
Remus looked down at the sand in front of him, watched for a while as each successive wave left a lip of white foam at the edge of the beach as it rushed up towards them, then slipped back away.  
   
“Remus,” Sirius said. The sound of it rolled in his mouth like a wonderful secret.  
   
“There are – there are things you don’t know about me, things you don’t understand,” Remus said.  
   
“Believe me, the same is true about me.”  
   
“It’s not safe to be around me. I’ve harmed everyone I’ve cared about. I won’t – I can’t – allow myself to do it again.”  
   
“Remus.”  
   
The force of the word made Remus turn and look at Sirius. Those deep grey eyes. They seemed to bore into Remus even in the dark.  
   
Sirius’ hand shifted on the sand, came and covered Remus’ so lightly it almost wasn’t there. Remus turned his palm up to meet Sirius’, gripped it hard. “I can’t,” he said.  
   
“Can’t you?” Sirius’ voice was a whisper, but it carried clearly over the lapping of the waves.  
   
“No. I really can’t.” Remus closed his eyes. He was not mistaking this. He was not mistaking what was being offered. And even if he couldn’t have that, maybe he could, just once…  
   
He took a deep breath, opened his eyes and leaned over and kissed Sirius. Sirius’ lips were so warm. Remus could have lost himself there, and gladly.  
   
He pulled away, and released the hand in his.  
  
“Good night, Sirius.”  
   
He stood, brushing sand from his trousers, and Sirius just stared up at him, not moving, not speaking.  
   
“I’m sorry,” Remus said.  
   
Still Sirius didn’t speak, just gazed at him with those eyes that seemed to cut right through everything else and get into his soul.  
   
Remus made his way back to the steps that climbed the steep slope of the cliff. As his feet found purchase in the dark, Sirius’ voice drifted up to him together with the rolling waves.  
   
“Good night, Remus.”


	4. Chapter 4

Remus woke to find bright sunshine streaming through the window. Finally a day of perfect weather, just when he wouldn’t have minded rain and stormy gusts to match his chaotic thoughts.  
   
Had that really happened, had sat there on that windy beach with a beautiful stranger? Had he _kissed_ that stranger? And then just walked away?  
   
All that day and all that night, Sirius failed to turn up anywhere.  
   
Well. Remus knew it was his own fault.  
   
Determinedly, he threw himself into the daily routine of his new work life. His mornings were spent in the museum, helping Molly with whatever needed to be done there; the afternoons were for his caretaking rounds, what Molly’s children had started calling his “listening to the stones” time, because indeed much of his work involved standing still and silent with his wand out, paying attention to the slightest variations in the magic that ran deep in the abbey’s walls and the earth around it.  
   
The children wandered in and out of view, easy and at home around the abbey ruin, as Remus went about his tasks all the rest of that week.  
   
Bill, the oldest, was usually out with his friends from the village – Muggle children, to Remus’ impressed surprise, meaning the Weasleys were clearly a family who did more than just talk the talk of Muggle tolerance – but the rest of the children could be found popping in and out of the museum where their mother worked.  
   
Charlie, who’d just finished his first year at Hogwarts, talked incessantly about magical creatures. Remus loaned the boy an old book about rare dragon species, and thereafter suspected he’d accidentally gained himself a friend and worshipful admirer for life.  
   
Percy could usually be found with his nose in a book, while the twins Fred and George made mischief of one kind of another, three-year-old Ginny generally close behind. And there was Ron, the youngest boy, one year older than Ginny. It hadn’t escaped Remus’ notice that Ron was almost exactly the same age as Harry was now. In fact, he could easily imagine the two boys as friends.  
   
Well, who knew, perhaps Harry was an entirely different child now, but when Remus had last seen him, at the age of a year and a bit, Harry had been such an easy-going and happy child, always laughing, quick to befriend anyone he met. James used to joke that Harry would soon know more people than his parents did.  
   
Fifteen months old, Harry had been when Remus last saw him. He was born in July of one year, and orphaned in October of the next.  
   
Remus had last seen Harry at the funeral, on a wretched, drizzling November day in Godric’s Hollow. Dumbledore had been there – as all the Order of the Phoenix had been – and he’d taken Remus aside afterwards and put a hand on his arm. He’d done Remus the courtesy, at least, of not asking how he was doing. Spared him the burden of lying and saying he was fine.  
   
But he’d brought up the question of Harry.  
   
“There’s Lily’s sister as well, of course,” Dumbledore had said, “but Lily and James made you Harry’s godfather and I don’t imagine it’s a decision they took lightly. If you would like to take custody, legally speaking your path is clear.”  
   
Remus had felt his throat constricting. He’d let Harry’s parents die. What kind of fool would let him even hold the baby, much less take sole responsibility for his wellbeing? He could barely even look at the boy without being crippled with fear of what might happen if he went any closer.  
   
“Harry should go to family,” Remus had said, then fled the gathering at the soonest acceptable moment.  
   
He hadn’t even tried to sleep the night after the funeral, but had walked through the rain for hours, remembering the desperate fear and loneliness of being packed off to relatives he hardly knew. How lucky he would have been if his parents had named a dear friend as his guardian instead.  
   
But surely, he’d told himself over and over, it would be different for Harry. He was only a baby; he was young enough that he would learn to love his aunt and uncle as if they were his own parents. The best thing for him would be for Remus to stay far away.  
   
Remus had left the next day and not set foot back in the country since, until the guilt of his cowardly running away brought him back here to England to try to make a life at the fringes of wizarding society. But even so, even living here, it was his still responsibility to keep the people he cared about safe the only way he knew how – by keeping his distance.  
   
Lost in these thoughts as he watched the Weasley children play late on Friday afternoon of his first week at Grimmauld Abbey, Remus was startled when a voice behind him said, “You must be Remus!”  
   
He turned from where he’d been leaning against the outside wall of the museum to see a man coming towards him, approaching the abbey roughly from the direction of the village. Red-haired and jovial, this could only be Arthur Weasley, Molly’s husband and the father of the motley crew playing on the grass.  
   
“Yes,” Remus said. “And you must be Arthur.”  
   
Arthur grinned, pleased, and stuck out his hand. “The very one. Pleased to meet you at last – Molly and the kids talk about you constantly, you know. Sorry, meant to make it up here to say hello before this, but work’s been a bit mad.”  
   
“Pleased to meet you, too,” Remus said, shaking his hand. He liked Arthur instantly, despite himself, and had to hold himself back from the impulse to make friends with him. “You work for the Ministry, is that right?”  
   
“Yup,” Arthur said. “Not as exciting as it sounds. Well, not that it sounds exciting at all, I suppose. But it’s nice, stable work. Molly’s the one with the adventurous career. And you! I’ve been dying to meet the man Dumbledore picked for this job. He wouldn’t have just anyone, you know.”  
   
Remus wasn’t quite sure what to do with that statement. “Oh, well – I suppose I happened to be on hand and at loose ends at the moment, and he figured I would do.”  
   
Arthur shook his head. “All right, you’re modest, I get it. Perhaps you could give me a tour around here sometime, though? I mean, the magic tour, not the one for Muggles. Really explain what’s gone on here and what you do to contain it? Bill tells me you showed him some kind of impressive Revealing charm – ‘wicked cool’ were the words used, I believe.”  
   
Remus found himself completely disarmed by Arthur’s enthusiasm. “I – yes, of course. I’d be glad to.”  
   
“And we’ll have to have you over for dinner one of these days. The kids would love that.”  
   
“Oh, of course…” Remus said, vaguely. So far he’d been able to dodge Molly’s dinner invitations, but he wasn’t sure what he’d do if they both started asking.  
   
“Anyway, I’m just here to collect Molly and the kids.” He frowned at Remus. “You’ll be all right, up here alone over the weekend? You’re welcome to drop by our place in the village any time.”  
   
Molly would work a half-day on Saturday, just in case any tourists turned up unscheduled, but other than that she would be off-duty for the weekend. Technically, Remus would be off-duty as well, but it didn’t seem right to leave off his caretaking duties. Defensive magic wasn’t something that obeyed business hours, so Remus felt he should do his rounds at the weekends as well.  
   
“I’ll be fine,” Remus assured Arthur Weasley. “You needn’t worry about me.”  
   
Remus’ weekend was quiet. He took his time making his rounds of the grounds, watched the view of the sea from the ruined stones of the abbey, took long walks and tried to tire himself beyond the point of thinking.  
   
About Harry.  
   
About the people he’d lost.  
   
About the bittersweetness of missed chances.  
   
About Sirius, perhaps?  
   
Sunday night was the full moon, and that night even more than others, Remus knew he would go outside and walk and walk. He always found it hard to sleep on a full moon night, with the memories it brought.  
   
He watched the sun set and the moon rise, from a seat in one of the stone arches of the abbey’s exterior wall. Just as the sun was swallowed by the curve of the horizon, Remus thought he heard a dog howl, as if in pain, somewhere not far off. He supressed a shiver, thinking of werewolves undergoing the painful transformation that made them lose their human minds.  
   
When the moon was fully up, Remus set out walking, across the hills, roughly following the jagged edge of the coast. Once he could have sworn he saw Sirius up ahead, his outline unmistakable, cloak flying out behind him.  
   
But when Remus reached the spot where he thought he had seen him, high atop one of the cliffs, no one was there.  
   
He could have sworn, too, that the figure had looked back and seen him, then walked away. But surely that was only his fanciful imagination, the full moon making him more maudlin even than usual.  
   
The thought of seeing Sirius was fraught with dangerous temptations; the thought of _not_ seeing Sirius was laced with sadness. But the thought of seeing Sirius see him but turn away… That was nearly unbearable.  
   
The next morning, with the sun shining again, surrounded by the joyful company of Molly and her children, Remus told himself that the sight had indeed been only his imagination.  
   
The black dog was back again, barking with delight as the children chased him through the high grass. He came up to Remus once, too, nudged his head up under Remus’ palm, and Remus skritched him behind the ears. The dog tilted his head up and gave Remus a soulful look, for all the world as if he were saying, _See? See how nice things can be?_  
   
Remus decided he should probably spend a bit more time around people, if he was now ascribing human emotions to dogs.  
   
And in fact it was only a week later, the next Sunday, that Remus finally ran out of excuses and succumbed to Molly’s dinner invitation.  
   
The Weasley home – a large, rambling house at the edge of the village that they’d dubbed the Burrow – was just as cosy as Remus had imagined. Ginny proudly brought him an armful of the Cat named Cat, Ron showed him his Chocolate Frog Card collection, and Charlie pulled Remus into the back garden and asked him half a dozen questions about gnomes.  
   
Molly finally laughingly dragged Remus’ hands free from the children’s eager grasp, saying they would never get round to dinner if everyone had to have a turn at Remus’ attention.  
   
She smiled at him over the twins’ heads, and he could tell she was pleased at how well he and the children got along.  
   
The thought made him deeply uncomfortable, but he didn’t know how to extract himself back out of this family that seemed already halfway to adopting him as an honorary member.  
   
Of all the things Remus least wanted to talk about, Harry Potter came up in conversation over dinner.  
   
Molly had said something about the abbey, and Arthur had said something about Lord Black, and somehow they’d arrived at Harry.  
   
“That poor boy,” Molly said, just as she had done on the day when Remus had first met her. “Saved our world, but lost his parents in the process. And he was just a wee thing at the time, a year or so old.”  
   
“Fifteen months,” Remus said, before he knew what he was doing.  
   
Heads swivelled towards him, Molly’s and Arthur’s and those of any of the children who were paying attention to the adults’ conversation.  
   
There was a long beat of silence.  
   
“You knew them,” Molly breathed, eyes gone shocked and round. “His parents, I mean. The Potters.”  
   
“Yes,” said Remus. “We were at school together.”  
   
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Molly said. “And here all this time I’ve been saying such thoughtless things. Remus, I’m so sorry.”  
   
“It’s quite all right,” Remus said, wishing he could will it so just by saying it.  
   
With a last wide-eyed sympathetic glance at him, Molly quickly changed the subject, steering the boys onto something about the Quidditch team they all followed.  
   
Later, though, after pudding was finished and the children had run off to play, Remus found himself alone with Molly in the kitchen, sitting opposite her at the long table.  
   
“Remus…” she said, hesitant. “I don’t want to pry, but if you ever want to talk about, er, what came up in conversation before… I would be glad to listen. I don’t mean to presume, but it seems as though perhaps you don’t have many people you can talk to.”  
   
Remus studied the wood grain beneath his hands where they rested on the table. He was resigned to this, now. He would end up telling all of his secrets sooner or later. Perhaps it was even better this way. It might make it easier when he inevitably had to explain to Molly why they could only be colleagues, not friends.  
   
“Harry’s parents were my closest friends at school,” he said. “And after we finished school, as well. When they heard Lord Black was targeting them, they asked me to be their Secret Keeper, but for various reasons, I backed out. And in the time between when I should have done it, and when they would have found someone else–”  
   
He couldn’t say it.  
   
“That’s when they were killed,” Molly said, her voice very soft.  
   
Remus nodded, and blinked at the ceiling.  
   
Molly reached across the table and rested her hand on his, startling Remus with her touch.  
   
“That’s a terrible burden for anyone to bear,” she said, voice still terribly gentle. “I could tell you it’s not your fault, but I know saying it wouldn’t change how you feel. I’m so sorry. I’ll certainly do a better job of thinking before I speak, now that I know.”  
   
“You needn’t – Don’t think you have to–”  
   
“They were your best friends,” Molly said. “And you probably hear their names tossed around all the time as if they were only a footnote to history. Of _course_ I’ll make a point to think before I talk about them.”  
   
Remus nodded. His throat was still treacherously tight.  
   
“Do you ever see their son?” Molly asked quietly.  
   
“No. I’m not the right person to look after him.”  
   
Molly just squeezed his hand.  
   
They sat a few moments longer in silence, then Molly said, “Remus, it’s been such a pleasure to have you here this evening. But if you’d like to head back to your own place now, I’ll make your excuses to the children, and I won’t be offended in the least.”  
   
“Molly–” Remus said. How could he express his gratitude, his guilt?  
   
“I understand,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Remus. Get home safely.”  
   
Remus did not go home.  
   
He climbed the hill from the village, gave the hulking black outline of the abbey a wide berth and kept walking, along the cliffs, following the ragged line of the coast. The sun was just setting. The moon, at its waning quarter, wouldn’t rise for hours. The wind off the sea was painfully strong, blowing grit and sand into Remus’ eyes.  
   
_Sirius_ , he wanted to shout, like the heroine of some romance novel. Like he could just cry out a name and call the person to him.  
   
He would have done it, too, if he’d thought it would work. Anything to have reason right at that moment to think about the present and not the past.  
   
He walked and walked, his throat tight and raw. The driving wind stung his face. When, _when_ , would he be able to hear James and Lily’s names spoken without this descent into overwrought emotion? When would he learn to lock it away?  
   
Remus struggled to the top of another bluff, barely able to see for the whipping wind stinging his eyes and scouring his face, then he stumbled as he walked straight into someone.  
   
In all those empty miles of hill and coastline, he walked into the solid wall of another human being, and strong hands rose to clasp his shoulders and catch him from falling.  
   
“Remus,” said a low, dark, richly rolling voice, a voice Remus wanted to lose himself in, dive inside and never surface again.  
   
_I called him_ , Remus thought wildly. _I did it. I thought it and he came._  
   
“I don’t care,” he said out loud. “Forget everything I said. I don’t care.” He leaned in hard against Sirius and pressed his lips to his.  
   
Sirius stiffened, startled, then he gasped in a breath against Remus’ lips and kissed him back.  
   
Sirius’ hands were at Remus’ hips now, warm and solid, grounding him. Telling him that he was alive, and here, and now.  
   
“Where have you been?” Sirius breathed, when they could speak again.  
   
“I was out walking.”  
   
“No. I mean all these years.”  
   
Without waiting for an answer, Sirius pressed his lips to Remus’ again, hungry and searching, and Remus gave himself over to being wholly the focus of someone so passionately present.  
   
They stayed like that, desperately entwined, bodies pressed close together, lips joined, hands searching, for what seemed an age, and yet it was still far too soon when Sirius pulled back and said, “I’ve got to go.”  
   
Remus protested against his lips.  
   
“I really do have to go. But I’ll come to you tomorrow night. If you want me to, I’ll come to you.”  
   
“I want you to,” Remus said without hesitation. No more thinking too much. No more denying himself what he wished he had. He wanted this.  
   
Sirius’ smile was sad and hopeful and a little bit secret, too. He disentangled himself, but kept hold of Remus’ hand. “All right,” he said. “I’ll be there.”  
   
“Where do you live?” Remus asked impulsively. “Let me walk you home.”  
   
Sirius shook his head. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”  
   
He released Remus’ hand, but not before he’d lifted it and brushed his lips across Remus’ fingers. Something deep in Remus’ chest swooped with desire and desperate joy.  
   
“Sirius–”  
   
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”  
   
Sirius’ lips quirked once again, and he turned and headed away, inland over the hills. The sky was growing light, dawn already coming. This near the solstice, the nights were far too short.  
   
Once again, Remus watched Sirius walk away from him, but this time it was with a fierce joy beating in his chest.  
   
Sirius would come to him the next night. Sirius – beautiful, wild, unexpectedly tender Sirius – shared his feelings, as impossible as that seemed.  
   
To think he’d almost let this slip away, almost turned Sirius away and not even tried.  
   
But he was trying now.


	5. Chapter 5

When he reached his cottage, Remus fell into bed and slept the last couple of hours until it was properly morning.  
   
He stumbled through his duties all that day, barely able to concentrate, but if Molly noticed his distraction, she didn’t say anything. Perhaps she thought it was simply an aftereffect of the conversation they’d had the evening before.  
   
He spent the whole day in an agony of anticipation and irrational fears.  
   
What if Sirius didn’t come? What guarantee did Remus have, really?  
   
Or – what if something happened? How would he know whether Sirius had changed his mind, or something had simply got in the way? He didn’t know how to find Sirius, where he lived, how he spent his days or the rest of his time when he wasn’t lingering about Remus’ cottage in the shadows. What if he disappeared out of Remus’ life again as suddenly as he’d come?  
   
Remus realised he’d been staring at the same small patch of stone for…he didn’t know how long. He shook himself, and moved on.  
   
Sirius would come. He had to.  
   
~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
   
Dusk fell, and still Sirius wasn’t there. Remus paced inside the cottage, then decided to go outside instead. If he was going to be anxious and overeager, at least he could do it in a less confined space.  
   
He opened the front door and Sirius was there. Standing in the dark under the stars.  
   
“What are you standing around there for?” Remus laughed, his joy bubbling up into his words. Sirius had come.  
   
Sirius glanced up at the starlit sky, then back at Remus. He hesitated. “There are some things you ought to know–” he started.  
   
“I don’t care,” Remus said, wild with happiness. “I really, really don’t care. Come on.” He reached out and tugged Sirius towards him, closer to the door of the cottage.  
   
Sirius gazed at him, still wavering. “Remus–”  
   
“Sirius.” He tried to pour all his longing into the name. Sirius was finally, finally here. “Come inside. Please. I invite you to cross the threshold, you mad creature of the night.”  
   
Sirius snorted, loosening up a little despite himself. “I don’t think you get to invite me anywhere, around this place. I go where I please.”  
   
“Oh, is that so?”  
   
“Yeah, it is.”  
   
“Then come inside with me.” Remus could feel a daft smile that kept tugging at his lips. He was fighting against it, but he couldn’t say he was trying very hard. “Whatever great confessions you want to make, they can keep. Come inside, Sirius.”  
   
For an unbearably long moment, Sirius hesitated still. Then, in only the time it took to blink, he had thrown himself at Remus and was kissing him, hot and hungry.  
   
“Yes,” Remus gasped against Sirius’ lips. He’d always thought “weak in the knees” a cliché, but it wasn’t, it really wasn’t. He could barely stay on his feet. “Yes, inside, Sirius. Come.”  
   
They were inside the cottage, Remus was kicking the door shut behind them, he was pressing Sirius against the wall, hands in that beautiful black hair, both of them gasping for breath.  
   
“You don’t know–” Sirius managed. “You don’t know my secrets, it doesn’t seem fair–”  
   
“You don’t know mine either,” Remus returned fiercely. He stopped with his hands on both of Sirius’ shoulders, their chests pressed together, his cheek against Sirius’ cheek, trying to catch his breath. “No, I don’t know anything about you. I don’t even know your name. And I don’t care.”  
   
“You know my name.”  
   
“No, I don’t. Don’t know your family name. You could be anyone.”  
   
“I’m Sirius,” Sirius breathed directly into Remus’ ear. “That’s all that matters.”  
   
Remus shivered, white-hot heat shooting into every part of him from the place where Sirius’ lips brushed his skin. “Come to bed with me,” he begged.  
   
Sirius nodded against his cheek.  
   
“Yes?”  
   
“Yes.”  
   
Remus grabbed Sirius’ hand and pulled him towards the tiny bedroom at the back of the cottage. They stumbled through the doorway together, bumping into the frame. Sirius laughed when he saw the tiny, narrow bed, tucked under the sloping edge of the roof.  
   
“It’ll do,” Remus said, far from offended.  
   
“Yes. More than.”  
   
Sirius had his hands at Remus’ waist, and then Remus found himself on the bed, Sirius kneeling above him with his head brushing against the angled ceiling. It was too dark to see his face.  
   
Remus fumbled for his wand – he’d felt it fall out of harm’s way when Sirius tumbled him to the bed – and set it on the shelf beside the bed, murmuring, “ _Lumos_.”  
   
Sirius’ dark hair fell to either side of his face, framing his sharp cheekbones and his deep grey eyes, and his sweet, sexy, sardonic mouth.  
   
“Merlin, you’re gorgeous,” Remus gasped, then felt himself flush. He hadn’t had many partners in his life so far, but even he knew you didn’t say that sort of thing out loud. Not to someone you barely knew.  
   
But Sirius growled, “So are you,” and scraped his teeth along Remus’ neck in a way that left not a single other thought in Remus’ head.  
   
Sirius. Every one of his nerves was singing _Sirius Sirius Sirius._  
   
“I’m going to undress you now,” Sirius said, deft fingers already slipping buttons from buttonholes down the length of Remus’ shirt.  
   
And Remus simply said, “Yes.”  
   
~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
   
Far too early, before even the faintest fingers of dawn had reached in through the room’s one low window, Remus woke to the rich, smoky sound of Sirius murmuring in his ear, “I’ve got to go.”  
   
Remus shivered – that voice in his ear would always, always make him shiver – and pressed himself closer against Sirius in the narrow bed. “Nnuh,” he disagreed, fuzzy-headed and half asleep.  
   
He felt Sirius’ lips curve into a smile against his cheek. “Uh-huh. Yes. I have to go.”  
   
Sirius shifted, pushed himself up on his elbows so he was leaning over Remus, the tips of his hair tickling Remus’ cheeks. He leaned down for a kiss, so gently.  
   
“I’ll come again tonight. If you want,” he said.  
   
“I do. I want.”  
   
“All right.” One last kiss, then Sirius was gone from the bed. Remus heard him moving in the dark, finding his clothes.  
   
Remus started to struggle into a sitting position, but Sirius’ hands found him and eased him back down.  
   
“Don’t get up. I can let myself out.”  
   
With a kiss to Remus’ forehead, Sirius was gone. And Remus, though he didn’t mean to, fell back into a deep and satisfied sleep until morning.


	6. Chapter 6

  
Sirius came the next night, and the next, and the next. They tumbled into bed, delighting in each other, learning each other, each time more intoxicating than the last.  
  
Later in the night, they would lie together, squeezed in close in the narrow bed, laughing and talking.  
  
The only things they never talked about were their own secrets. Sirius never said anything more about his family or his past, where he lived or how he spent his days. Remus didn’t ask.  
  
And Remus didn’t tell him about James and Lily, the best friends he’d allowed to die, or about their son Harry, the godson Remus had abandoned. He didn’t tell Sirius about his parents and how he’d caused their deaths – unintentionally, but he was responsible all the same. He was terrified of what Sirius would think of him if he knew.  
  
His other fear, that deep certainty that anyone he cared too much about would eventually come to harm, he tried to push down, tell himself it didn’t apply here, because Sirius could clearly fend for himself. But it ate at him, in the hours when they were apart.  
  
Perhaps Sirius would eventually tire of him anyway; that would be best. Yes – they could enjoy each other’s company now, until that inescapable point when they would go their separate ways, putting Sirius safely beyond Remus’ reach.  
  
It made Remus’ chest ache to think it.  
  
But when he was with Sirius, he was able to forget everything else. Every night that Sirius came to him was a night Remus was happier than he’d believed possible. He lost himself in Sirius, in the richness of his laugh and the sweep of his hair and the warmth of his hands. Remus had never known one person could hold such endless fascination.  
  
It was always Sirius who came to him. He never invited Remus to his home, and he never suggested they meet by day, but Remus took whatever he was offered, greedily, for as long as he was allowed to have it.  
  
He never neglected his duties that kept the abbey safe – never again would Remus neglect duties of that sort – but the rest of the time he was helplessly distracted. It amazed Remus that Molly didn’t seem to notice he was love-struck and absentminded, his body carrying on with sorting papers and performing tasks, but his head far away over the hills somewhere with Sirius, wherever he was.  
  
“Tell me about Durmstrang,” Remus asked late one night.  
  
The moon was full again, but for once Remus didn’t feel the need to try to escape himself by walking as far as he could over the hills. He’d never felt as safe as he did there in the warmth of Sirius’ arms.  
  
He hoped he wasn’t asking too much. Talking about school seemed, if not neutral, then at least somewhat less fraught than questions of family. “Surely it wasn’t all terrible. Did you have friends there?”  
  
Sirius snorted, his breath gusting gently over Remus’ hair. “With all those little Death Eaters in training? Not likely.”  
  
Remus pictured Sirius, young and lonely and out of place in a world all wrong for him, and ached at the thought. Sirius should have been at Hogwarts. How he would have blossomed there.  
  
“Besides,” Sirius said, shifting so his face was more fully hidden behind Remus’ head, “I never finished school. I left when I was sixteen. There was…something I needed to do. I knew I was the only one who could do it, and it needed to be done.”  
  
His tone was desperately serious, but when Remus tried to turn and look at him, Sirius held him in place where he was.  
  
“Don’t ask me about it, Remus,” he begged. “Please don’t ask.”  
  
“All right,” Remus said, startled and sad. “Of course. I won’t.”  
  
“Thank you,” Sirius whispered into his hair, and Remus felt his own chest expanding with a confusion of grief and fierce protectiveness. He’d never thought he would meet someone even lonelier than himself.  
  
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” he said to Sirius, who was still managing to avoid his eyes. “Your past doesn’t matter to me. Just be exactly who you are.”  
  
Sirius stayed silent a long time, his arms still and tight around Remus’ chest, then suddenly he flung them both around so they were facing each other and kissed Remus with single-minded intensity, the thread of the conversation quickly lost in the heat of their embrace.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Remus’ life became a starkly divided thing.  
  
Nights were wild and warm and _Sirius_ ; nights he could be himself in a way he’d never been before, and be adored for it.  
  
Days, he was pleasant, mild-mannered, helpful Remus Lupin, who played with the children, and occasionally went to dinner at Molly and Arthur’s place, and kept a careful eye on the building under his charge.  
  
One afternoon he caught and neutralised a Baffling Hex that had started to work its way free from the stone wall near the former crypt entrance, stopping it almost before it had begun. Molly was terribly pleased with him and declared that she was going to write Dumbledore – again – to say what a treasure Remus was.  
  
When Remus told Sirius about it, laughing over Molly’s effusive praise, Sirius just went still in his arms and said, “I _hate_ it that stuff like that still happens. This whole place ought to be burned to the ground.”  
  
Not for the first time, Remus wondered what exactly connected Sirius to this place. He’d said his family came from the area, but his reactions to any mention of the abbey or its history often seemed excessively personal even for that. A couple of times Remus had woken in the middle of the night to find Sirius leaning against the window, peering up at the abbey ruin that loomed above the little cottage and brooding.  
  
It wasn’t the kind of thing they talked about.  
  
Remus had toyed with the idea of asking Molly, casually in conversation sometime, about any old wizarding families known to have lived nearby, but he always shied away again. Sirius’ privacy was his to keep, not Remus’ to pry at.  
  
And if Remus wished there were some way his daytime and his nighttime lives could join, well, he ought to just be satisfied with what he had.  
  
One evening as it was getting towards dusk and Remus was doing a last circuit of the abbey walls, Molly dashed up to him, eyes wide with panic.  
  
“Remus–” she gasped. “Oh, it’s the twins, they’ve run off, they get away if I don’t keep my eye on them every second, and it wouldn’t matter, but they’ve got their new Unsinkable Enchantment toy boat and they keep trying to sneak off to the water to play with it, but they’re too little to be around water alone, they can’t swim yet, and I only turned round for a moment and–”  
  
Remus reached out and gripped Molly’s shoulders to stop her panicked flow of words. “Molly. Where is it you think they’ve gone?”  
  
She stared at him, trying to focus past her fear. “The beach. Or the river. It could be either, and I can’t check both at once. I’ve sent a message to Arthur, but it hasn’t reached him yet!”  
  
“I’ll go to the beach. You check the river. Go.”  
  
He gave her a gentle push in that direction, towards town, and she ran.  
  
Remus ran, too, to the edge of the cliff, then hurried down the steps that descended the face of the rock. Already he could see the slanting light of the setting sun glinting off the bright red heads of two little boys, up to their waists in the water with their toy boat.  
  
“No, no, no,” Remus whispered as he picked his way down the stones as fast as he could. The waves were too rough here for a child to wade in.  
  
He reached the beach and ran towards the boys, but they’d seen him coming and the more daring of the two – Fred? – laughed and plunged a couple steps further out, with the boat held up teasingly in one hand –  
  
Then the boy stumbled, got a mouthful of water and went down. His brother screamed in fright and stumbled after him, buffeted by an incoming wave even as the water carried the other boy further out.  
  
There was no question of what to do. Remus knew he could swim faster and stronger in his Animagus form. He hated all that his animal form represented – his parents had been killed by a werewolf, and it had been Remus’ own naïve curiosity that had drawn the werewolf to them – but this was no time for Remus’ pride.  
  
Fighting down the guilt that surfaced every time he did it, Remus transformed into a wolf.  
  
He plunged in, the cold waves drawing an involuntary _yip_ of surprise from his wolf’s muzzle even as his powerful forelegs cut through the water. He hadn’t been in his wolf body in so long. His limbs revelled in the freedom of it, even as his human mind rebelled.  
  
He paddled hard, straight towards the twin who had gone down first and was further out. The boy was flailing and coughing, but somehow keeping his head above water for now. When he saw a wolf coming at him, though, he panicked and screamed, getting another mouthful of water, and his head disappeared as the next wave broke over him.  
  
Remus dove and snapped and got his wolf’s jaws firmly fixed on the boy’s T-shirt, dragging him upwards again. The boy – Fred – spluttered and coughed, but he was breathing. Now, to get him to shore.  
  
But George, the other twin, was still in the water too, panicked and wide-eyed and in danger of getting knocked under by each successive wave. Remus couldn’t afford to leave him alone there for even a minute while he brought his brother to shore, but he couldn’t hold onto both boys at once.  
  
The agony of indecision felt endless, as Remus stared helplessly from one to the other of his charges and hoped desperately for some sign of what to do.  
  
And then a shaggy black blur streaked past him and there was the _dog_ , the big black dog, paddling past Remus, the last rays of sunlight flashing off his wet fur as he got his jaws firmly around George’s upper arm and dragged the boy back to shore.  
  
Weak-limbed with relief, Remus followed, paddling hard until he touched bottom again and could drag Fred safely up onto the sand.

Panting, Remus transformed back into his own form. Fred was coughing on the sand at his feet and George was crying, but that meant they were both breathing and alive. The sun was gone now, had set somewhere behind the cliff, but it had left the sky was a brilliant orange, strange and beautiful, and it felt so good to be _alive_ – Remus turned, in a dreamlike confusion, to look for the dog that had inexplicably come to their rescue–

And instead, standing across the sand from him, on the other side of the two boys, was Sirius.  
  
The last of Remus’ sense of reality fizzled out and left him behind.  
  
Where was the dog?  
  
How had Sirius–  
  
Oh.  
  
_Oh._  
  
For one long moment, Sirius just stared at Remus, anguish etched deep in his face. Then he ducked his head, turned and pelted away down the beach.  
  
“Sirius!” Remus shouted, but Sirius was already disappearing towards the far end of the beach, where a second path led up to the cliff, and the boys were crying on the sand at Remus’ feet, and he knew his duty was here.  
  
“Shh,” Remus said, kneeling and gathering both boys to him as well as he could. “You’re safe now, you’re all right.”  
  
The boys sniffled and coughed and pressed themselves against Remus’ chest, and as he held them he could feel their wildly fluttering heartbeats, like two tiny, scared birds.  
  
Remus felt much the same, and utterly confused as well.  
  
“Remus!” Molly was running towards them, crossing the sand from the steps that descended the cliff, Arthur just behind her. Tears streamed down her face. “Oh, Remus, you found them, are they okay?”  
  
“They’re fine, Molly, perfectly fine.”  
  
Molly fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around her sons. Remus pressed them into her arms and stepped back, as Arthur knelt and wrapped his arms around all three of them, his wife and sons, with eyes for nothing but his twin boys.  
  
Unbidden, Remus saw James and Lily, the two of them leaned in close together with their arms around Harry, cooing and laughing over him, and a hard lump rose in his throat. He took another step back.  
  
Molly looked up. “Remus–” Her voice was broken with fright and relief. “How can I ever thank you?”  
  
“It wasn’t just me.” He looked around, but Sirius was gone. “There was–” What was he supposed to say? This was Sirius’ own secret to tell or keep. Had the boys seen him transform back into a man? “The dog was here, that black dog. He pulled George out of the water while I had Fred.”  
  
Molly rose unsteadily to her feet, one of the boys still wrapped tightly in her arms, while Arthur held the other.  
  
“You saved the boys,” she said. “I still – I can’t believe it. Truly, how can we thank you?”  
  
“Don’t mention it,” Remus said, already feeling wrong to be here, wrong to be part of this family scene of deliverance and relief.  
  
“He can find our _boat_ ,” piped up Fred, apparently recovered enough to be back to his usual self. “Mum, the boat’s gone!”  
  
Remus had learned early on to recognise the moment when Molly began gearing up to give one of her children a good talking-to.  
  
“Fred Weasley!” she began. “Do you have ANY IDEA–”  
  
Arthur touched her arm. “Molly. The boys are soaked through, and it’s getting dark. Let’s get them home first, all right?”  
  
Molly visibly drew herself together. “Yes,” she said. “Of course.”  
  
She pulled out her wand and deftly cast a drying charm on each of the boys, then one on Remus for good measure. With Fred still balanced on one hip, she squeezed Remus’ arm with her other hand and said again, softly, “Thank you.”  
  
“Of course,” he said awkwardly. “Really, don’t mention it.”  
  
He saw Molly and Arthur and the boys safely down to the village, then turned back up the hill, declining their offers of something warm to drink at their place.  
  
He needed to be alone.  
  
Remus returned to his cottage in the falling dark and paced back and forth outside it, too full of anxious energy to sit still, but not wanting to go too far away, lest Sirius should come by and Remus missed him.  
  
Sirius was the big black dog.  
  
The black dog was _Sirius_.  
  
What did it mean? Was he an unregistered Animagus, too? But if so, why the depths of fear in his eyes when he knew Remus had seen him in that form? He’d watched Remus transform, too, and he surely knew Remus wasn’t about to turn him in to the Ministry.  
  
Sirius hadn’t looked like a man who’d transformed by choice. He’d looked like a man caught out at exactly the wrong moment, as the dusky colours of the sunset reflected in his anguished eyes.  
  
The legend of an evil lord who became a big black dog.  
  
An old wizarding family, mysterious and pure-blood, that Sirius refused to talk about.  
  
His visceral reaction to any direct mention of Grimmauld Abbey or its history.  
  
_My family were from around here,_ Sirius had said. _They’re all dead now._  
  
_Don’t ask me about it,_ Sirius had said. _Please don’t ask._  
  
Remus paced all night outside the cottage, but Sirius didn’t come.


	7. Chapter 7

After a week of waiting in silent agony, Remus couldn’t take it anymore. He broke down and asked Molly.  
   
“Do you remember I asked you about a man who came by here, back in the beginning?” he asked. They were out in front of the museum again, deciphering some difficult old scrolls in the intermittent sun that broke through the scudding clouds. It was July now, high summer, though it never got truly warm here so close to the wind-battered coast. The children were playing around them, and Remus noticed how Molly’s eyes still darted most often to the twins, Fred and George, reassuring herself that they were there.  
   
“Hm, yes,” Molly said, distracted, her head bent over the scroll in her lap. “Has he been giving you trouble?”  
   
“No, no, nothing like that. We’d got to be…friends, actually. He would come by sometimes in the evenings. But he hasn’t been by in a while, and I don’t know how to contact him. Are you sure you don’t know him?”  
   
“I don’t think so. What was his name again?”  
   
“Sirius. That’s all I knew, just Sirius.”  
   
Molly looked up in surprise. “Sirius? That’s an old wizarding name. It was used – well, it was a name used by the Black family, actually.”  
   
Remus felt a chill run down his spine. “What? What do you mean?”  
   
“The ancestors of Lord Black. They were an old wizarding family, you know, long before they came to England and became associated with Death Eaters and all that rot.”  
   
“And Lord Black had…descendants, too?”  
   
Molly sighed, glancing reflexively towards her children. “Well, they do say he had a wife and children, but so far I know, any descendants have died out by now. I think I once heard it said that there were two young brothers of that family, probably around your age, but they both died in the war.”  
   
Was Sirius a _ghost_? No, that was ridiculous. One thing Sirius definitely _was_ was corporeal.  
   
“And did they live around here, these descendants who might have been from the Black family?”  
   
Molly tapped a finger thoughtfully against her lip. “If they did, they kept it quiet in the intervening years. Can’t have been an easy surname to bear. And then once Lord Black rose again…well, who knows. It was such a chaotic time.” She turned to Remus, and her gaze went uncomfortably sharp. “Why? You think this man you met might be one of them, somehow?”  
   
That was what Remus was starting to think, wasn’t it? It would explain a great deal.  
   
“I’m sure it’s a coincidence,” he said.  
   
Molly nodded thoughtfully, and Remus was afraid she was going to ask more, but just then Ginny ran up shrieking about something Fred had done, and Molly’s attention was diverted.  
   
When their conversation started up again, it was only for Molly to say, “You know, I do understand that you’ll want to move on eventually, Remus. A backwater job like this couldn’t possibly hold talents like yours for long. I just hope you’ll visit us sometimes, when you go!” While Remus was still recovering from that statement, Molly added, “Oh, did I mention Dumbledore said he might drop by this afternoon?”  
   
Dumbledore did indeed drop by that afternoon.  
   
Remus hadn’t seen his former headmaster since he’d met him at Hogwarts at the beginning of the summer to talk about taking this caretaker post, and he’d rarely seen the man outside of Hogwarts at all, even during the years when Remus and James and Lily were working for the Order of the Phoenix. Dumbledore striding through the bleak abbey ruins with his bright blue robes and sparkling eyes was wonderfully incongruous.  
   
“Remus!” he said, as Remus came towards him, their paths connecting in the middle of what had once been the nave. He reached out and shook Remus’ hand. “You seem to be keeping well. How’s the work here treating you?”  
   
“Professor Dumbledore,” Remus said, feeling all at once like a tongue-tied schoolboy. “It’s good to see you. I have to thank you again for recommending me for this post. It’s been very rewarding.”  
   
The headmaster’s eyes twinkled even more, if such a thing was possible. “I’m glad to hear it. Made any friends here, in your time so far?”  
   
Had he emphasised that word, _friends_ , just a bit, or was Remus imagining it? Why in the name of all magic did the way he said the word send Remus wildly into imagining that he knew about Sirius? Dumbledore’s expression, as always, was jolly and inscrutable.  
   
“Er, yes,” Remus fumbled. “Molly and Arthur have been lovely, and their kids too, of course.”  
   
“I’m glad to hear it,” Dumbledore said, his voice going gentler. “We certainly all have need of friends.” Before Remus could think what he could possibly say to that – if anything, it would be something like,  _Maybe so, but some of us don’t dare_ – Dumbledore continued, “It happens I’m here with another work-related proposal for you. Shall we walk?”  
   
They walked together towards the cliff top, Remus stretching his legs to match Dumbledore’s long strides. Despite his advanced years, the man never failed to convey an impression of vigorous energy.  
   
When they reached the top of the cliff, Dumbledore stopped and peered down towards the beach, an expression on his face that could only be described as fond.  
   
“I used to come here, as a teen,” he murmured, almost more to himself than to Remus.  
   
 _As a teen?_ Remus desperately wanted to ask. _You mean, at the same time as Lord Black first started his reign from this very spot?_ But he couldn’t imagine voicing that question out loud.  
   
“Happy memories, in some ways…” Dumbledore mused. “But those days are past, as they should be.” He brought his focus suddenly back to Remus. “But we’re here to talk about you, Remus. Have you ever thought about teaching?”  
   
“…Sir?” was all Remus could reply.  
   
“Teaching. A professorship at Hogwarts. Don’t try to tell me you’re not qualified. I have complete confidence you would do the material justice.”  
   
“Teaching – Hogwarts – What subject are we talking about?” Remus fumbled, feeling he’d been suddenly left somewhere several sentences behind Dumbledore.  
   
“Didn’t I say? Defence Against the Dark Arts, of course.”  
   
If there had been a wall or post or something nearby to prop himself up against, Remus would have availed himself of it. The professor he most revered was offering him a teaching post at the place that had been his only real home beyond the age of eight, in the subject he had most enjoyed as a boy? Was he asleep and dreaming, and had only imagined all this morning and afternoon?  
   
“What – why? Has Professor Merrythought retired?”  
   
Dumbledore smiled. “Juniper Merrythought has had a long and illustrious teaching career at Hogwarts, as her mother did before her, but yes, she has decided to hang up her teaching hat, as it were. I am looking for a replacement, come this autumn. Preferably someone young, and energetic, with a strong understanding of Defensive Magic in both theory and practice. Will you consider it, Remus?”  
   
“I – yes. Of course.”  
   
“You needn’t give me your answer now. Send me an owl in a week or two, once you’ve had a chance to think it over. Ideal would be if you could come in August, before the start of term, in order to have some time to settle in. You would be paid for the additional month, of course, as well as a travel stipend.”  
   
“Yes, all right,” Remus said, still dazed. “But – are you sure, sir? You don’t want someone with more experience, someone who’s taught before?”  
   
Dumbledore’s eyes crinkled up at the corners. “The truth is, Remus, I see the perfect candidate for the job standing right in front of me.”  
   
When Professor Dumbledore went off to have tea with Molly before returning to Hogwarts, Remus wandered out into the hills in a haze of bewilderment.  
   
 _Him_ , teach at Hogwarts? Surely Dumbledore would change his mind, realise he’d made a mistake and rescind the offer. And yet, he hadn’t looked uncertain in the least. In fact, Remus had never known Dumbledore to be uncertain.  
   
Professor Dumbledore was truly offering him, Remus, a teaching position at Hogwarts, a job so ideal that Remus had never even dared to dream it.  
   
 _Of course_ he was going to accept!  
   
But there was no way he was going anywhere without seeing Sirius again.  
   
Right. It was time to track that man down.


	8. Chapter 8

  
All that next week, in every spare moment, Remus combed the countryside around the abbey. Sirius had said he lived nearby, so the process of elimination was in Remus’ favour. If he searched long enough, he _would_ find him.  
   
A series of summer thunderstorms kicked up, each night wilder than the last, but still Remus searched most of each night, coming back drenched to the skin because even the best Impervius Charm couldn’t keep out rain like that for long.  
   
Each morning he fell into bed as dawn lightened the sky, telling himself fiercely that the night’s search, though fruitless, had brought him one day closer to finding Sirius again.  
   
Remus was not going to let him slip away without a fight. That was one thing he’d finally learned.  
   
One night he even surrendered to the temptation and transformed into his Animagus form, in the hope that the wolf might scent out some trace of Sirius in dog form (Sirius _was_ the black dog, that still seemed so strange) but the rain had washed everything away.  
   
It was a wild night, the wildest by far, and Remus was far over the hills, struggling through lashing rain that stung his eyes and obscured his vision, growing desperate, starting to believe he would have to send his answer to Dumbledore’s offer before he found Sirius, maybe even _leave_ before he found Sirius. But he couldn’t accept that. He couldn’t let that happen.  
   
Cresting another hill, struggling against the wind, Remus peered into the next valley and saw a little nondescript cottage, not unlike the place where Remus himself was living, framed by trees that at the moment were no more than dark outlines tossed in the wind.  
   
But the instant Remus saw it, he knew. Maybe it was some residual wolf sense, but he knew Sirius was there.  
   
For a moment, he just stood at the top of the hill and stared at the little house, heedless of the wind lashing rain into his eyes.  
   
_Sirius was there_.  
   
Remus flung himself down the hill, ran to the cottage and banged at the door. “Sirius!” he cried. “Sirius, are you there?”  
   
There was nothing but the pounding of rain in his face, the whipping of tree branches above his head.  
   
Remus leaned his forehead against the wooden door.  
   
“Sirius,” he murmured. “You’re here, aren’t you?” Then, louder, “Sirius, I found you, I came all the way here, so please, open the door!”  
   
He thought nothing would happen.  
   
Then the lock clicked open, the door swung inwards, and Sirius was standing there, surveying Remus, his face expressionless.  
   
“Remus,” he said.  
   
“Sirius,” Remus gasped in surprise. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to throw himself at the muddy ground and turn cartwheels, he wanted to pull Sirius to him and kiss him breathless. Instead he said, “Hi.”  
   
Sirius looked at Remus, from his streaming hair to his sodden clothes.  
   
“I think you’d better come in,” he said.  
   
He stepped back to let Remus pass, then closed the door behind him.  
   
As Remus dripped quietly onto the threadbare rug that covered the wooden boards of the little hallway, Sirius raised his wand.  
   
Remus supposed he ought to spring into defensive position – he’d just barged into the home of a man who hadn’t wanted to be found, and that man was now pointing a wand at him – but he simply stood and waited, and Sirius cast a flawless drying charm over him.  
   
“Come inside,” Sirius said, and pointed the way into a diminutive living room.  
   
The whole place was spartan, not in the least fitting for a man as passionate and dramatic as Remus knew Sirius to be. It was tidy and bare and hardly even looked as though someone lived there.  
   
They perched at opposite ends of a worn sofa that had aged to a nondescript greyish colour.  
   
“You want to know who I am,” Sirius said, his voice wretched.  
   
Remus glanced over at him in surprise. It was the first emotion he’d shown. “No – I mean, yes, that too, but mostly I just wanted to find you. You ran away.”  
   
“I deceived you,” Sirius said. “You don’t care about that?”  
   
“What, about being an Animagus, or whatever you are? I’m an unregistered Animagus too, you saw that.”  
   
“I’m not an Animagus. _I am Lord Black_.”  
   
Remus was on his feet with his wand in his hand before he’d even consciously registered Sirius’ words.  
   
“Not _that_ Lord Black, you daft idiot,” Sirius said, still hunched over on his side of the sofa with his elbows on his knees. “He’s gone for good this time. I made sure of that. No, I mean I’m his last descendant, current Lord of the Black Family line, though I wish to Merlin I weren’t.”  
   
Very slowly, Remus put his wand away and sat down. “So when you said your family were from around here, you weren’t joking around.”  
   
Sirius laughed mirthlessly. “Direct descendants of the legend himself. So, when old Evil Thing rose again, we weren’t just supporters; we used to have dear old Great-Granddad round for supper.”  
   
Remus tried to picture that, and failed. But his heart ached for young Sirius, trapped in a family at the right hand of Lord Black. Then he thought back to Sirius’ words.  
   
“Wait,” he said. “What do you mean _you_ made sure he was gone for good?”  
   
Sirius poked his toe at the scuffed floorboards. “When I was sixteen,” he said, “I managed to get away from Durmstrang and make contact with Dumbledore. The whole family were supporters of old Lord Thing – my younger brother even became a Death Eater later, after I left, but he got in too deep and they killed him in the end. But my point is, I knew some things. Family secrets. There were… oh, it’s too long a story, but basically old Thingy had hidden bits of his soul in different places and they all had to be destroyed, if he was ever going to be mortal again. And I knew where they were, or at least I had some pretty good guesses, based on what I knew about the family, and about the abbey.”  
   
A large number of pieces were falling into place very rapidly in Remus’ mind.  
   
Dumbledore’s other, separate mission, the one the rest of the Order never quite knew the details of. His mysterious contact in Eastern Europe. His disappearances to unknown locations for days on end.  
   
“That was _you_ ,” Remus said, stunned. “What Dumbledore was working on all that time, to bring down Lord Black for good, he was doing it with you.”  
   
“Yes,” Sirius said, not sounding particularly happy about it. “That was me.”  
   
“But – you’re the hero of the wizarding world! How could you possibly think I would think badly of you for that?”  
   
“I’m not a hero!” Sirius burst out. “I was only trying to undo the damage my family had done, and even so, look how many people died before I was able to get it finished!”  
   
“No,” Remus said. “No, listen to me. I fought in that war. I lost my two best friends to that war. And I’d do it all over again, because there was no other choice. I couldn’t stand by and watch Lord Black destroy the world I loved. And _you’re the reason_ he could finally be defeated. I can’t imagine how anyone could hold any part of that against you. And if they did, they wouldn’t be worth your time.”  
   
Sirius was gazing at Remus with wonder. “You really mean that.”  
   
“Of course I mean it! Sirius. For Merlin’s sake.”  
   
Remus hesitated – Sirius looked so far away, and so determined to stay there – but finally he reached out a hand across the sofa.  
   
Sirius hesitated too, then reached across and took it.  
   
“You don’t know everything about me either,” Remus said quietly. “My friends who died – that was because of _me_. I was supposed to be their Secret Keeper, but I let them down. And my parents…” His voice grew more wretched as he went on. “I told you they died in an accident, but that’s not quite the truth. They were killed by a werewolf. And it was my fault.”  
   
Sirius stared at him. “What d’you mean, it was your fault? How could it be your fault?”  
   
Remus tried to retrieve his hand from Sirius’, not wanting to see or feel Sirius’ reaction when he heard this, but Sirius held fast.  
   
“Remus,” Sirius said again, more gently. “How was it your fault?”  
   
Staring at the floor, keeping his voice resolutely level, Remus said, “I was a little kid with big notions about my own cleverness, and I was always fascinated by Dark creatures. I got this idea in my head that I was going to try to summon a werewolf. I was eight, almost nine. And it worked. It was the full moon, and I did a complicated spell that drew a werewolf to me, and it got into my bedroom and tried to attack me. But my parents came and fought it off, and it killed them.”  
   
He heard Sirius suck in a sharp breath. “Remus, I’m–” he began.  
   
“So you see, people who get too close to me get destroyed!” Remus fairly shouted. “It’s dangerous. _I’m_ dangerous. You can’t get too close to me, because bad things happen to people who do. It’s like I’m under some kind of curse.”  
   
Sirius was still refusing to relinquish Remus’ hand. “A curse?” he demanded. “Seriously, you’ve been going around all this time thinking you’re cursed? Take it from someone who knows what it’s like to live under an evil curse. You’re not cursed. _I_ am.”  
   
“ _You_ are?” Remus asked, startled out of himself for the moment.  
   
“Uh, yeah, the whole dog thing? Or did you miss that?”  
   
Sirius looked so put out at Remus’ lack of attention to the details of his situation that Remus felt a breath of mad laughter rising in his throat, despite it all. “No, I mean yes, I did notice,” he said. “What do you mean it’s a curse?”  
   
“Old family thing,” Sirius said, shifting restlessly beside him. “A witch whose family Lord Black destroyed, back the first time around, cursed the Blacks so the first-born son of each generation would always be a dog by day and a human only at night. Guess she picked that because it’s the same form Lord Black sometimes took, except we don’t get to choose when it happens. And I’ve tried every possible thing to reverse it, and believe me, nothing works. I’m never a man during the day, Remus. Only from sundown to sunup. You don’t want that,” he added softly.  
   
“Yes, I do,” Remus said. He’d never been more sure of anything in his life. If beautiful, passionate Sirius still wanted Remus, despite everything… “I absolutely do.”  
   
Sirius looked hard at him. “What are you saying?”  
   
“I’m saying I want to be with you, and some old family curse doesn’t change that. Except, truly Sirius, _you_ don’t want to be with _me_. It only ever ends badly.”  
   
“Oh, for Merlin’s sake, Remus, you’re not cursed! You may have had horrible luck and awful things happen to you, I believe that, and I’m sorry for it, but you’re not a danger to anyone. Besides, listen, you couldn’t harm me if you tried. That’s part of the curse, I’m bound to the abbey, I have to stay near it at least part of each year, but if I do that, I’m actually pretty invincible. There’s some kind of old magic in the abbey stones that I don’t really understand, but it seems to keep me safe. And I’m already cursed for life. How much worse do you really think you could make things for me?”  
   
Remus sat for a bit and took that in, feeling Sirius’ hand warm in his. Could it be that he had found a person he could dare to love?  
   
“So, what are you saying, then?” he asked in turn.  
   
“I’m saying I want to be with you,” Sirius said, his expression going suddenly shy and sweet.  
   
Remus’ heart fluttered in his chest.  
   
“I can’t quite see why you’d want me,” Sirius murmured. “But if you do…”  
   
“I do.”  
   
“And I like that you’re a wolf,” Sirius mumbled, again sounding almost shy.  
   
Remus stiffened instinctively. “I’m not a wolf. I’m an Animagus.”  
   
“I like that you’re a wolf _Animagus_ , all right? It’ll be less lonely.”  
   
Remus sat there, stunned.  
   
Because that was true, wasn’t it? The Animagus form that caused him such shame was, for Sirius, simply a similarity that brought them a little closer together.  
   
More seriously, Sirius added, “Because I’ll always be under this curse. We’ll never, I don’t know, go on picnics together. Or do any of those normal daytime things that people do. Whatever those things are.”  
   
He looked so sad that Remus said, “I know. And I’m sorry, for your sake. But Sirius, I don’t _mind_.”  
   
Sirius looked at him with such disbelieving hope, it nearly broke Remus’ heart.  
   
“Come here,” he said, tugging Sirius towards him. Sirius came willingly now, tucking himself against Remus’ chest as Remus rested his chin against that sleek, beautiful hair. Remus sighed so deeply it seemed to come from every part of him.  
   
Sirius turned to press a kiss into Remus’ collarbone, and Remus gasped at the heat that shot through him from that tiny point of contact. He pulled Sirius up closer so he could kiss him properly, getting lost in the warmth of Sirius’ lips and the fire that sparked through him at every touch of Sirius’ hands.  
   
“Wait,” Remus said, a while later, surfacing from where he’d been kissing his way down Sirius’ throat. “But how did you attend school, if you turned into a dog every single day? Didn’t that make it a bit difficult to go to class?”  
   
Sirius scowled, pressing his lips against Remus’ temple so Remus would know he was frowning. “You’d be surprised how little that stood out, compared to some of the types you get at Durmstrang.” He shifted lower, pressing his mouth more insistently against Remus’ skin. “Also, hey, so you’re an unregistered Animagus. What’s that about?”  
   
“James and I learned how to do it together, while we were still at school,” Remus said, feeling a fond smile tug at his lips. “Just as a lark, you know, to see if we could. But it proved useful later, when we were in the Order of the Phoenix.”  
   
Sirius nodded against his neck, clearly familiar with the Order.  
   
“But there’s no excuse for being unregistered, now that I’m living back in England again. I’ll need to take care of that soon, before–”  
   
Oh. He hadn’t told Sirius about the job offer yet.  
   
“Sirius…”  
   
“Hmm?”  
   
“Do you have to stay here? I mean, you said you have to be near the abbey part of the year, but the rest of the time, could you go where you liked?”  
   
“Sure, in theory. But I haven’t got anywhere else to go.”  
   
Oh, it hurt to hear him say that, though he said it without even a hint of self-pity.  
   
“Come to Hogsmeade with me,” Remus burst out. “Would you?”  
   
Sirius shifted, like he was trying to see Remus’ face, though the room had grown too dim. “Why Hogsmeade?”  
   
“I’ve been offered a teaching position at Hogwarts. It’s – oh, it’s a dream job, Sirius, I can’t imagine anything I’d rather do, but–” He took a breath, steeled himself in preparation for saying something so huge. “I don’t want to go there without you.”  
   
“All right,” Sirius said. “Let’s go to Hogsmeade. I hear it’s nice.”  
   
“Really? Just like that?”  
   
“Remus.” Sirius snaked an arm tighter around him. “Where else exactly do you think I’d rather be?”  
   
Remus thought his chest might actually burst from joy, and he turned his attention to conveying that feeling with the intensity of his lips on Sirius’.  
   
“So,” he gasped a few moments later, surfacing for air. “This time, you think you could see your way to letting me spend the night at your place?”  
   
Sirius chuckled against his lips, a sound that thrilled all the way through Remus’ body. “You know, I think I might do.”


	9. Chapter 9

Dawn was coming far too soon. Already, the sky outside the window was a deep blue, no longer the dark shade of night. The storm had broken, the air was still.  
  
Remus had spent most of the night not wanting to sleep, when he could be awake instead and aware of Sirius’ warm skin beneath his hands. At last, almost unwilling, he’d dozed off for an hour or two. Now, the sky was almost light, and Remus had a long walk over the hills ahead of him.  
  
This time, he was the one who said, “I’ve got to go.” Molly would probably be fine with it if he turned up for work late this once, but Remus wasn’t sure that he himself would be fine with it. That wasn’t how he did things.  
  
“Mm, okay,” Sirius said, and pulled him closer.  
  
Remus laughed. “No, really, I have to get back. But will you come tonight?”  
  
Sirius leaned in and kissed his temple. “I will.”  
  
“I’m going to… I’m going to write Dumbledore today, and accept his job offer. Should I?”  
  
“Yes,” Sirius said, unhesitating. “Of course you should.”  
  
Reluctantly, Remus pulled himself from their warm nest of blankets. For a moment, he stood and just gazed down at Sirius, all gorgeous dark hair and sharp features against the pale white pillows.  
  
“See you tonight, Sirius.”  
  
In a single fluid, dramatic motion, Sirius flung himself into a sitting position and reached out to embrace Remus one last time.  
  
“I’m glad you came and found me,” he murmured against Remus’ ribs.  
  
“Believe me,” Remus said, “so am I.” Then, overcome by emotion, he whispered into Sirius’ hair, “I love you, you know.”  
  
“Well yeah,” Sirius mumbled, his voice sleepy and warm against Remus’ skin. “Of course. You too.”  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Remus could have sung aloud as he loped over the hills back to the abbey. The ground, sodden from the night’s storm, squelched underfoot. The sun, warm and golden, was just peeking over the hills ahead of him.  
  
He hated to think of Sirius, alone in his animal form, unable to return to his own shape until the sun set. But now, at least, Sirius wouldn’t always have to be alone.  
  
Remus crested the last hill and saw the abbey ahead of him, seemingly aflame from the fiery sun rising behind it. He looked at it with a tug of fondness he’d never before felt for the old stone ruin. This had been the site of great cruelty and suffering in the all too recent past, but for Remus, it would now also always be the place where he had dared to allow himself to love.  
  
“You look chipper,” Molly said, when Remus met her a little later in front of the museum.  
  
_I’ve fallen in love_ , Remus wanted to tell her. _I’ve met the perfect man and I’m wildly happy. Oh, and by the way, you know that unusually communicative dog your kids love playing with? Turns out that was him all along._  
  
But all of those were at least half Sirius’ story to tell or not tell as he chose.  
  
All Remus said was, “I’m going to accept Dumbledore’s job offer. I’m guessing he told you why he came?”  
  
“Yes, he did,” Molly said. “Oh, Remus, how wonderful! Congratulations!” She pulled him into an exuberant hug.  
  
Surprised, Remus hugged her back.  
  
“I’m sorry, Molly,” he said, when she’d released him again. “It’s really been a pleasure to be here and to work with you, and I certainly didn’t mean to leave again so soon.”  
  
“Oh, nonsense,” Molly said. “Hogwarts is perfect for you, Remus. I never expected this job to hold you long, a young man of your talents. Oh, I’m just so pleased for you!”  
  
“Thank you, Molly. That means a lot.”  
  
She stepped back a little, surveying him with uncharacteristic seriousness. “Remus, if you don’t mind my saying it – perhaps it’s time, too, to try to make contact with your godson. With little Harry. You’ve said you don’t think you’re the right person to care for him, but I could very much imagine that you are. And if you ever wanted to bring him here, so he could play with the children… Well, we’d be happy to have you both, any time.”  
  
Mad as it sounded, Remus found he could picture it quite easily. Visiting back here from Hogsmeade in the summers with Sirius…and Harry. Harry running around with the Weasley children, making friends perhaps with Ron, who was the same age. Harry surrounded by a loving surrogate family who might in some measure help to replace the family he’d lost.  
  
Remus would never take Harry away from his aunt and uncle if he was happy with them, of course. But if it ever turned out that Harry needed a home, then for the first time Remus felt like he might have one to offer.  
  
“Thank you, Molly,” he said. “That’s really kind. I just might take you up on that.”  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
The sun had set behind the hills and Remus had put the abbey to bed, as he’d come to think of it, checked everything over and made sure it was all secure. All evening, his skin had tingled with the knowledge of how soon he would see Sirius again.  
  
Remus came around the abbey, towards the cliff side, thinking he might walk along the bluff top until Sirius got there – and there was Sirius already, coming towards him along the top of the cliff, a dramatic outline against the fading sky.  
  
The wind caught and played with Sirius’ hair, and in the dusky light, Remus could see that he was smiling.  
  
“Sirius!” he called. Remus broke into a run, closing the distance between them until he’d reached Sirius, there on the cliff top, and could sweep him into his arms, laughing.  
  
“Hello, Remus,” Sirius said, then pulled Remus in and kissed him with an intensity that took Remus’ breath away.  
  
The abbey ruin behind him and the sea ahead of him fell away, as Remus’ entire being turned itself to Sirius. The village below the curve of the hill was far out of sight. The beach below them was empty. They might have been the only two men in the world.

  
  
– FIN –

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! This story marks my first Remus/Sirius, my first slash, my first true AU, and my first story with some actual sexiness in it, rather than only the barest of hints... First a lot of things, in other words. So I'm very pleased to be able to post this. Thanks so much for reading along!
> 
> Updated to add...
> 
> I've since written lots more Remus/Sirius stories, after this one lit the spark! They are:
> 
> • [A Constellation’s Just a Picture in the Sky](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5268578/chapters/12157184) – a slight-canon-divergence AU of adventure and romance.  
> • [The Fall of the House of Black](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12462843) – another gothic romance, that's also a fusion with Edgar Allan Poe.  
> • [Northern Sky](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12526136) – Remus takes Sirius to watch the northern lights.  
> • [Dust and Soot and Silence](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2348966) – four nights of difficult emotions, in 1979.  
> • [Hangover Cures](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2642246) – fluff and romance, one morning ca. 1980.  
> • [Shipwreck Against Your Eyes](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2642282) – things falling apart, in September 1981.  
> • [Never Say Never Never](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2707922) – fluff and fun and Muggle films, in 1977.  
> • [Boys in Space](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1736696) – a fun little outer space AU.  
> • and a fun cowritten project with stereolightning: [Fantastic Beasts and How to Win Their Hearts: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4978381/chapters/11434138)


End file.
